Grace News May 9, 2023

OFFICIAL NOTICE: CONGREGATIONAL MEETING MAY 28^TH AT 9 AM IN THE NOLT AUDITORIUM

Grocery Cards

Grocery cards are available at both services on Sunday mornings. You may order cards by calling Duane and Kitty Weiss. Remember all purchases of cards realizes 5% in cash back to Grace. These funds are used to support our many ministries.

Save the Date For Confirmation

Join us in celebrating the rite of Confirmation on June 4th (Trinity Sunday) at the 10:30 service. Our confirmands will present their projects that morning during Sunday School in the Nolt Auditorium.

Grace Book Group

To help you plan ahead here are the topics for book group for June-September 2023

June – Read a book that retells a classic story or fairy tale.

July – Read a book that is set in a place you’d like to visit or revisit.

August – Read a book that was originally published in a non-English language.

September – Read a book that was published the year you were born.

If you need help finding a book finding a book to fit the theme please contact Angie Rabbe, Brenda Hayasaka, or your local library. Our book group meets the second Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. on Zoom.

Christian Formation

Vacation Bible School

Soul Food: How God Feeds Us
A time to unplug and gather around the table

June 14, June 28, July 12, July 26, August 2
6– 8 p.m.

Hello Grace Families,

We had a wonderful response to our evening VBS last summer! This year we are hoping to add a larger intergenerational component. The theme for this summer is Soul Food: How God Feeds Us. We will begin each evening with dinner together! There will also be time for teens and adults to play some fun games together. Let the laughter begin! Of course, we will also provide great VBS activities for our Pre-K through 6th grade age groups.

Megan Supeck is our director this year and she has lots of great ideas and connections to the professional food world! Together we will praise God, learn, sing, eat, laugh, and play.

May God bless our efforts and our time together.

In peace, Kath

Volunteer opportunities include helping with crafts, making dinner, helping with science experiments, helping with games, helping with story time, and helping with music! If you are interested in volunteering please contact Kath or Megan.

Watch the Grace News and our website for more information! If you have any questions please contact Kath or Megan.

Prayer Group Updates

Prayer Chain: Did you know that Grace church has a group of about 12 people who pray each day for those listed in the bulletin/newsletter and also for those situations/people who ask for confidential prayers? If you would like to join this group contact Lisa Bisignani.

Prayer Station: Here you will find various resources for prayer including devotions and our prayer cross. The prayer station is in the Narthex near the elevator/water cooler. If you have people or situations to be held up in prayer there are papers on the prayer station in the narthex. When you write your requests you should indicate whether this is a communal or private request and then place it in the box marked “prayer chain”. If you want the prayer to remain private only the Pastor and the prayer group will know.
(If you are unable to make it church you may call Lisa Bisignani or Pastor Verkouw).

Prayer Cross – This is just a fun way to put our everyday concerns on paper and add it to the prayers of others! As the cross visually grows more vibrant in color, may our prayer lives with our Father grow in vibrancy too.

Weekly Reflection

Jesus himself is the way to follow to live in truth and to have life in abundance. He is the way and therefore faith in him is not a “package of ideas” in which to believe, but rather a road to be travelled, a journey to undertake, a path with him. It is following Jesus, because he is the way that leads to unfailing happiness. Following Jesus and imitating him, especially with deeds of closeness and mercy towards others. This is the compass for reaching Heaven: loving Jesus, the way, becoming signs of his love on earth.

Brothers and sisters, let us live the present, let us take the present in hand, but let us not be overwhelmed; let us look up, let us look to Heaven, let us remember the goal, let us think that we are called to eternity, to the encounter with God. And, from Heaven to the heart, let us renew today the choice of Jesus, the choice to love him and to walk behind him. May the Virgin Mary, who following Jesus has already arrived at the goal, sustain our hope.
Pope Franis (Regina Caeli, St. Peter’s Square, Sunday, May 7, 2023)