Dear Members and Friends of Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd,

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Happy Easter season to you all. With the butterflies dancing above the sanctuary, the lilies swaying on the altar, the quilts draping the pews, beautiful music filling the air, and the sun warming us, it certainly feels like spring in our worship. On the Sunday after Easter, we celebrated the baptism of Zach Stowers, and welcomed new members Bill and Pat Folz, Jennifer and Jessi Folz-Smith, and Dorothy Fant. We also have other friends of Good Shepherd who will join soon. It is a new day! Spring has sprung.

It is also time for change. After a year and a half, this month we say goodbye to our friends in LSSI’s Prisoner and Family Ministry, who have outgrown the space at Good Shepherd and will be moving to their own building, leased from Zion Development. We are grateful to have been able to help the program get off to a good start, and wish them well on their way. We will also keep our partnership with them alive in the years to come by hosting graduations and special events.

WINGS (Wednesdays in Good Shepherd) is up and running again – the children were excited to return after Easter. For the summer, we host the West Side Day Camp from July 6-10. We are also exploring the possibility of serving as a federal Summer Lunch program site for the city of Rockford, where the city delivers lunch for children in the neighborhood, and we host, at no cost to us (except for our tax dollars, of course). This is another opportunity to build relationships with the children and families of our community and make a difference in their lives and ours, by inviting them to Jesus’ table.

As you probably know, the main boiler for our building has ‘died,’ and we know we will have other facility challenges in the future, such as the roof, the AC systems, flooring in the Fellowship Hall in the basement, repairing the pews and the lighting in the sanctuary, and so on. We need to be good stewards of the church property, to ensure that Good Shepherd can remain a mission outpost for God’s kingdom, a passionate, grassroots Jesus community united in living and sharing Jesus in this community for years to come. Following the potluck brunch after worship on Sunday, May 17, we will have a congregational meeting to discuss and vote on a capital improvement campaign, and permission to go ahead and replace the boiler, so we can have heat by the fall. Please make sure to attend this important meeting.

 

Living and Sharing Jesus in 2015,

 

Pastor Eric Lemonholm