|
click here for past entries |
|
Date |
Location / Leader |
Topic |
|
Feb 7 |
SLZ / Pastor Lynne |
David / Goliath / Saul |
|
Feb 14 |
SPLC / Pastor Erik |
Elijah |
|
Feb 21 |
Grace Lutheran (211 Kimberley) |
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper |
|
Feb 28 |
SPLC / Pastor Erik |
Exile / Daniel / Envelope Questions |
MID-WEEK DURING LENT:
This year, we will be sharing services on Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday with St. Francis Anglican. The Ash Wednesday service will be held at St. Francis (253 Burrin Ave.) at 7:00 pm on
Feb. 22nd, with “coffee time” to follow.
On the other Wednesdays during Lent (Mar. 1 to 29), St. Francis and others will be invited to join us at
St. Luke’s Zion for a soup & bread supper and The Chosen. Each week, we will watch an episode together, with an opportunity for discussion to follow. The time frame will be 6-8 pm.
SHROVE TUESDAY: (Feb. 21)
The Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper is returning! Please join us on Tuesday evening, February 21st from 5-7 pm at Grace Lutheran Church (211 Kimberly Avenue)
to chow down on some delicious pancakes. Please bring your appetite, your friends, and a free-will offering for our youth going to CLAY. Youth from Grace, Sherwood Park,
St. Luke's Zion, and Spirit of Life Ministry (Abundant Life and Prince of Peace) will be hosting.
MNO YOUTH:
Feb 3 - 5 - MNO Winter Retreat in Steinbach, MB. The theme is "Like Light & Sand" with Rev. Rachel Twigg.
MNO:
Our newsletter is our primary way of communicating with members and congregations, and we want everyone to be informed in a timely manner.
click on the following link MNO Synod Newsletter
ONLINE WORSHIP:
For those who would like to join in our online worship, here's how to do it:
1. If you have a Facebook account, sign into Facebook and search for @stlukeszion. The video will not appear until the live stream begins, which is usually a few minutes before 10:30 am. You can also view it any time after that.
2. With no Facebook account, go to Facebook.com/stlukeszion. Click on "Not now" when it asks you to sign in or to sign up. You should be able to view the service any time after 10:30 on the same day as it is recorded.
ELCIC: Gifts From The Heart:
Help us Care for Children in Cameroon
Within this program, 60 children suffering from extreme poverty receive support with school tuition, supplementary food for their diets and emergency medical care.
Donations can be made through any MNO Synod congregation by marking “Kids in Cameroon” on your offering envelope.
Booklets are available on the table in the narthex.
If you would like to receive ELCIC News directly? From information and resources, to upcoming events
click on the following link
sign up for ELCIC NEWS today
SLZ ANNUAL MEETING:
The AGM for St. Luke’s Zion will be held on Sunday, Febrary 26th following Worship. There will be a cold pot-luck (sandwiches & dainties) lunch.
Annual reports are now due.
SUNDAY SERVANTS:
we are looking for volunteers for a reader and a communion assistant each Sunday starting
on Feb. 12, 19 & 26 as well as each Sunday following.
If you are available to help please let Pastor Lynne or Joanne Janzen know either by text, email, a phone call or in person.
We appreciate all those who have volunteered up to this point.
LUTHER VILLAGE CAMP:
Registration is NOW OPEN for the 2023 season at Luther Village!
Join us to experience “Boundless- God beyond measure” and all camp has to offer in a rugged and beautiful setting on the shores of Dogtooth Lake.
#seeyouatLV #campinglife #registernow
CLAY 2023:
Here's some basic info:
- Registration opens early February
- Gathering registration cost is $575.
- MNO is planning a bus trip, flying into Toronto, and spending 3 days in southern ON before going to the gathering. MNO is estimating that the total cost per participant (including CLAY registration) will be in the $1200 range, but that will largely depend on airfare.
- We hope to fundraise to help cover costs, and SLAW also has a fundraising account with significant funds that can help for our youth group.
LUM (Lutheran Urban Ministry:
January 2023 News from your Ministry Manager
Happy New Year!
2022 has come to a close and during this Christmas season we’re reminded that the Christmas message isn’t just about a manger and cute animals around it. It’s the ultimate reassurance to us of God’s love and promises.
With currently rising unrest, climate change, and economic uncertainties in the world, those living in poverty worldwide are affected most deeply. So many people who attend the Lutheran Urban Ministry have challenges and struggles in their daily lives. The following examples are not stand-alone but often inter-related for many people and form seemingly huge mountains to get out from under.
• Housing Insecurity: substandard housing examples - promises of repairs that don’t happen; drafty windows; furnaces that quit and a long wait for restored heat; rent increases that exceed the budget with food purchases suffering as a result; crime in the building or the neighbourhood creating stress, fear and uncertainty; a long walk to the bus stop; some live in substandard rooming houses or group homes.
• Food Insecurity: examples – rising food prices causing the food budget to be used up even sooner; nutritious food purchased less often; many can only go to the grocery/convenience store in walking distance.
• Physical Disabilities: examples - many of the people who attend the Urban worked for many years but are now unable to do so. Some live on a small monthly disability payment.
Some have not worked enough years for an adequate CPP and exist on only OAS and the supplement and deal with rising rent and food prices.
• Mental Health Disabilities: examples – struggles with depression, anxiety, PTSD, FASD, bi-polar, etc. Some people struggle with addictions. Loneliness, homelessness, sleeplessness, worry, trauma, grief and loss - currently experienced or from painful memories also affect mental health.
On January 15, Pastor Barry Bence led our first worship service since the pandemic began. He had a candle lighting in memory of family members and friends who have passed away since our last in-person service. Masks were required and will be removed when receiving communion.
Doors opened at 1:00. Worship service 1:30 – 2:15 p.m. Bagged meals were distributed as people exit the service. As well, bagged meals were distributed outside from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. for those not attending the worship service.
We plan to resume sharing circles sometime in February as well, and these are in the planning stages.
• After our sharing circles and worship services are back in full swing, bagged meal distribution will continue outside the side door on Wednesdays and Thursdays (and Sundays) at the times listed on the door.
Our website: www.theurban.ca. Please keep our vulnerable Lutheran Urban Ministry community in your prayers.
Please contact me: rhonda@theurban.ca for additional information, or to have your meal team added to the calendar.
Kind regards, Rhonda Gorham, Ministry Manager, Lutheran Urban Ministry Corp.
NOON-HOUR LENTEN SERVICES:
The Winnipeg Centre of the Royal Canadian College of Organists is pleased to be presenting a series of 5 short noon-hour Lenten services at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 637 Buckingham Road. These services will take place from 12:15-12:45 every Wednesday from March 1 - March 28. Each service will be led by Pastor Tyler Gingerich; will feature five meditative organ pieces, a hymn, scripture, and prayers. The organists will be March 1 - Joseph Thompson; March 8 - Anne Kelm; March 15 - Melissa Gingrich; March 22 - Charmaine Bacon; and March 28 - Haewook Kim. All are welcome.
WORLD DAY OF PRAYER:
What is World Day of Prayer?
Informed Prayer. Prayerful Action.
Imagine Christians from over 170 countries coming together in spirit, uniting on a common day to pray for relevant issues affecting women and children. This is a reality: the movement has been active for nearly 100 years. Each year, a different country writes the service materials. The World Day of Prayer is generally celebrated on the first Friday of March. This year (2023), the writing country is Taiwan:
“I have heard about your faith” based on Ephesians 1: 15-19.
Origins of World Day of Prayer
The origins of World Day of Prayer date back to the 19th century when Christian women of United States and Canada initiated a variety of cooperative activities in support of women’s involvement in mission at home and in other parts of the world.
Concern for women and children
Women had a strong sense of identification with the needs of women and children and searched out ways to provide appropriate support. In spite of strong resistance from the all male mission boards, in 1861 and the following years, women founded numerous and effective women’s boards for foreign and home missions whereby they could work directly with and for women and children.
The role of prayer in mission work
Women were encouraged to engage in personal prayer and take leadership in communal prayer within their mission auxiliaries and associations. This emphasis on prayer led to annual days and weeks of prayer. In 1887 Presbyterian women called for a Day of Prayer for Home Missions and Methodist women called for a week of prayer and self-denial for foreign missions. A Baptist Day of Prayer for foreign missions began in 1891.
Women had a vision of Christian unity that was seen as essential to their exercise of mission.
Methodist women joined the day of prayer for home missions between 1892 and 1894. By 1897 the women of 6 denominations formed a joint committee for a united day of prayer for home missions. On a rotation system women of the participating denominations wrote the common worship service. In 1912 the Woman’s Boards of Foreign Missions called for a united day of prayer for foreign missions.
Study is everyone’s responsibility
Following the Ecumenical Missionary Conference in New York City in 1900, women organized an interdenominational Central Committee for United Study that prepared publications, summer conferences, study days and courses so that women could become informed about the lives of women in other parts of the world and could study biblical foundations and vital issues related to mission work.
Women created ways to work together in mission
Women undertook organizing interdenominational structures that were effective and cooperative in home and foreign missions. For example, in 1908 the women founded the Council of Women for Home Missions that took responsibility for joint work with immigrants and other social issues and for preparation of the joint day of prayer.
Women celebrated their commitment
In 1911 women celebrated the 50th Anniversary or Jubilee of women’s missionary activity by organizing a series of speaking engagements across the United States that provided women with a powerful experience of what they had achieved in ecumenical cooperation and fellowship, in local and global linkage, in prayer and information sharing, and in biblical reflection. All of this had been in the hands of women. Out of this experience many local interdenominational women’s groups were formed.
Women linked world peace with world mission
After the devastation of World War I, women incorporated the conviction that world peace was intrinsically tied to world mission. With this realization women renewed their efforts for unity. The first Friday of Lent was established as a joint day of prayer for missions and was celebrated for the first time on February 20, 1920. Due to the enthusiastic facilitation of local denominational and interdenominational women’s groups, the day of prayer spread rapidly throughout the USA. In 1922, the Canadian women, who had begun celebrating a day of prayer in 1895, took up the same date.
World Day of Prayer comes into being
In the second half of 1926 the women of North America distributed the worship service to as many countries and partners in mission as they could. The response worldwide was enthusiastic. By the beginning of 1927 the call to prayer that was issued was for a World Day of Prayer for Missions. In 1928, the title of the day was shortened to “The World Day of Prayer”. In the same year, this statement came from the World Day of Prayer Committee:
?
"It is with deep gratitude that we recognize the growing power inherent in our World Day of Prayer. A very decided expansion of this prayer fellowship has come during the past year. The circle of prayer has expanded literally around the world. We have learned the great lesson of praying with, rather than for, our sisters of other races and nations, thus enriching our experience and releasing the power which must be ours if we are to accomplish tasks entrusted to us."
The circle of prayer reaches out to the world
From 1927 up to now, women gather to pray with women from a different country. A theme developed by the WDP Committee inspires informed prayer and prayerful action.
In 1930, Helen Kim of Korea was the first woman outside of the United States to write the order of worship for the World Day of Prayer. It is from these roots that World Day of Prayer has taken its present shape.
Check out these links for more information on this year’s WDP:
Taiwan 2023 - World Day of Prayer International
Video: