Friends & Family Dinner
A fellowship dinner was held on 8/16/26 to celebrate our church family and friends, enjoy one another’s company, and renew our commitment to the Christian growth that God asks of each of us. 80 members and friends came together for a Shorty’s BBQ catered dinner for fellowship and to celebrate our church’s Outreach efforts.
After Pastor provided the blessing, we all enjoyed a scrumptious meal of pulled pork & chicken, baked beans, mac & cheese, coleslaw, corn bread & rolls, various jello sides and scrumptious cake. We had some great dinner conversation and listened to a recording of Dr Tony’s music in the background. We talked with new friends about ministry opportunities available in our church.
We invited those that wanted to provide input, to review our “Find your place at First St John” flyer showing activities by interests to suggest ministries that they might want to explore for both existing and new members. They could write down suggestions for new activities and ministries as well, and to comment on the evening and our outreach going forward. There was even a check box for those who would like to help contact members we haven’t seen in a while.
You see we sent out invitations to our members who haven’t been active lately, as initial contact, with the idea that we would follow that up with personal contact to encourage them to come back to church and ensure they know God loves and misses them, and to determine if we could do anything for them. This sometimes takes more than one contact.
Outreach can be a hard activity to judge success for. Often results are not seen right away. However, God uses our efforts to feel his love and grace. By stepping into the role of loving our neighbor, God encourages those feeling overwhelmed, unloved, unworthy, to feel his love in a physical sense. The work we do to provide our beautiful Sunday Services, provide support through our various ministries, visiting the sick and dieing, putting an effort to be open and inclusive with our friendly personalities, go a long way in showing God’s grace.
Within the last half a year many at St John have been very willing to plan and help organize additional outreach ideas impacting the hearts of those involved, served, and who see what we are trying to do. About a dozen wanted to help steer our efforts, another 30 or so sent out personal invitations with prayers and their name to help our missed members know we are praying for them and deeply miss them. We’ve asked the prayer chain, our homebound members, our minitries, and all of our congregation to pray for our Outreach efforts and the heart to let our lights shine.
Outreach requires faith, that each reached feels God presence calling them to church, and that in God’s own time and way, God’s plan for them will be seen. We remember, if one more gets to heaven it’s all been worth it.
Our next effort is to continue to reach our missed members until we know each one is under God’s care. At the same time to send out the message “God Loves You and You Are Missed” to residents of the 43605 and 43616 zip codes. We plan to send 2500 postcards out mid September and then start using Valpack to reach 20,000 residents each quarter for the next year. We also will review input from our flyers received to help make adjustments to our agenda.
Our goal is to establish a steady source of people, touched by God through mailings, to come to church, our church or any community of believers. A very tall order, but not for the great “I AM”. Our God is awesome and ALIVE. Our particular brand of Lutheran doctrine and service will thrieve again, we continue to adjust our methods through listening to our members and taking action, and most importantly to not give up the mission.
All and all a wonderful time was had by all. We raised $1,430 in free will offerings. We thank everyone doing this Out/Inreach, your efforts are so welcome and appreciated.
