in your presence there is a fullness of joy,
and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
~Psalm 16:11
To watch our live streamed services at 9:30 am and 11:30 am on Sunday mornings, go to gracelutherantoledo.org and scroll to the bottom of the home page. There is a link to connect you to the live services and also all previous recorded services. Join us online!
Don’t forget to turn your clocks back before going to bed Saturday night!
Daylight savings time ends.
Please join us for Fellowship Hour during the months of
October, November, December.
Thank you to the following people for signing up to hostess!
November 7 – Wendy McCall and Debbie Fallon
November 14 – Cindy Wood and Mary Schneider
November 21 – Sue Wagner and Sue Melchert
November 28 – Brenda Holderman and Janet/ Callie Moore
December 5 – Debbie Downs and Grace Peterson
A BIG THANK YOU to Sue Wagner
Thank you, Sue for all you do – organizing the Sunday Fellowship hour week after week for us! It is much appreciated. It is so nice to be able to socialize with our Grace family.
And a BIG THANK YOU to Mary Schneider
for being here every Monday to collect food for Toledo!
Food for Toledo Update
For a two week period, October 12 – October 25, 209 pounds of food was collected for the Aldersgate United Methodist’s Church Food Pantry. Thank you to everyone who donated food. I am available on Monday’s from 9 – noon at the entrance to Brenner Hall to accept non-perishable, unexpired food for this program or items can be placed in the Giving Room. Suggested items include cereal, pasta sauce, pasta, jelly, canned tuna, and canned fruit and vegetables but all items are accepted and distributed. Thank you again!
Shout to the Lord all the Earth, let us sing
Power and majesty, praise to the King
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.
What Got Left Out on Sunday
Last Sunday was Reformation Day for us Lutherans. When Presbyterians and United Methodists and Roman Catholics gathered for worship, they did not hear the Bible readings that we used because it was Reformation Day for us. For other Christians who use the Revised Common Lectionary, it was the 24th Sunday after Pentecost. They heard a different set of readings.
The first reading they heard was Deuteronomy 6.1-9, with its heavy emphasis on teaching the law, reciting the law, discussing the law, learning the law. The last part of it reads:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
The first reading we used, though, is about how our teaching has failed to work, and what God is going to do about that. From Jeremiah 31.31-34:
I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more
Is this another instance of God’s trying again after something has failed to work, of going to Plan B when Plan A didn’t pan out as God had hoped it would? Does God want us to toss out Deuteronomy in favor of Jeremiah? I think that’s one possibility, but not a very good one.
A much better possibility, I think, is that God has recognized that our knowing what the law requires of us may change our behavior, but it does not change our inclinations. There is no great joy for God, or for us, if we can be obedient to the law we have memorized only by gritting our teeth and working hard at obeying, even though we’d really rather do something else. Suppose I force myself to bring food for our weekly collection as a way to try to look as if I love my neighbor as I love myself. I want God to see my giving, and take note of it. I want other people to see my giving, and take note of it. My hungry neighbor will benefit, yes, but I may find myself resenting God for the burden it puts on me, and I may be impatient with other people who don’t notice how generous I’m trying to look.
Seeing that sourness, then, God decides to fill me with the concern for my neighbor that’s behind the law, a concern for my neighbor that reflects God’s concern for my neighbor. Being hungry hurts, and God doesn’t like it when people hurt. Then, and only then, will I be able to enjoy bringing the food. God will have written the law on my heart.
Let’s keep both texts! The first of them, the one from Deuteronomy, can help get some food to our hungry neighbors. The second, from Jeremiah, can help us to see our need for God’s help, our need for the forgiveness God offers in Jesus Christ, our need to open our hearts so God can write on them. I think my giving will be more joyful when God takes away my self-centeredness about it.
What do you think?
Behind the scenes at Grace …by Gretchen
- Did you see the Blade article this last Thursday (it is posted on the Community Bulletin Board) about fire dispatchers? Our own Tammy Ray was front and center as one of the Fire Dispatchers! Thank you, Tammy, for all you do!
- Don’t forget the Prayer Board in the Sanctuary. It will be changing a little over the next couple of weeks. We will have a Prayer Board and the Edu – Board make a return to Fellowship Hall.
- The Personal Needs, Christmas Child and Feed Your Neighbor bins have been relocated “back home” to the Graceful Giving Room which is across the hall from room #3. Food and Personal Needs items are still in great demand so don’t forget when you are shopping.
- Did you see that there is a “packing day” for Operation Christmas Child on Sunday November 14th after second service?
- The church was hopping this last Tuesday! Voters, bake sale, Granny’s Attic, Rada cutlery and accessories – all sorts of goodies! Our menagerie was laying low with all the traffic both in and out of the church!
- The coleus outside Brenner Hall have been beautiful and hugeamongous thanks to Connie Thomas, her green thumb and lots of rain!
- The Southwest Michigan and Northwest Ohio Association of Parish Nurses met here this last Monday and were very appreciative of the ability to use Fellowship Hall and their presentation was even better with the Loving Monster!
Remember: Grace is not the building but the people of Grace carrying out God’s Mission !
The only way to receive abundantly is to give abundantly
(Peter Megaree Brown)
Health is not just an absence of illness as it is way of living
(Bill Moyers)
Photo by C. Holewinski
It’s Shoebox Time
The Christian Education Committee is again sponsoring Operation Christmas Child. We are in need of items to fill boxes. Brochures on how to pack a shoebox are located near the church office. We are holding a packing party following the 11:30 service on November 14th in Brenner Hall and you are invited! Drinks and munchies will be provided. We will transport the packed and wrapped boxes to the area collection center on Sunday November 21. Volunteers are needed. For more information contact Linda Mason 419.472.3863 or Connie Thomas 419.242.9340.
The Youth Group soup sale was last Sunday and was a great success.
There were 86 pre-orders and another 25 containers of soup sold at the door.
The youth are from Memorial, Providence and Grace churches.
Money raised will go toward the youth gathering in Minneapolis next July.
All soup and chili was donated by family and friends.
Thank you to all who supported the Youth!
Lord I lift Your name on high
Lord I love to sing Your praises
I’m so glad You’re in my life
I’m so glad You came to save us
You came from heaven to earth to show the way
From the earth to the cross, my debt to pay
From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky
Lord I lift Your name on high
This is the day the Lord has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
~Psalm 118:24
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