This Sunday
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"Our Saviour Lutheran Church, 212 Sunset Drive, Johnson City, Tennessee will offer
3 services of The Service of the Word at 8, 9, and 11 a.m. on the 8th Sunday after the day of Pentecost.
The preacher will be Ms. Becky Whitlock, graduate of the Southern Appalachian Lay Leadership Training as well as a long standing lay leader of Conference 6 of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA. Her sermon will be "Breaking Down Walls."
All are welcome and a nursery is provided
For further information about OSLC, please visit our website at www.oslc.cc
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Parish Calendar
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EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
8:00 AM - Holy Communion
9:00 AM - Heartsong
11:00 AM - Holy Communion
MONDAY, JULY 23
10:00 AM - Cover Girls
THURSDAY, JULY 19
6:30 PM - Heartsong Band |
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"...citizens with the saints..." (Ephesians 2:19)
By the time you read this article, six of us from OSLC will be well into the 2012 ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans! Our trip started out via Ann Ottinger's SUV (thank you Ann!) on Monday with a trip to Atlanta, GA, where we met up with the Faith Lutheran Church (Farragut, TN) Youth Group and caught the Amtrak on Tuesday to New Orleans. Registration was done on Wednesday and our little group met up with over 34,000 other Lutheran youth and adults while there! Can you imagine? (Not if you live in East Tennessee you can't!)
Our plans are to arrive back in Johnson City late Monday/very early Tuesday, July 23/24. I am sure that we will come back with stories to tell! We do plan to offer a visual presentation of what transpired this week, all because we want each of you to know how your dedicated offerings to us were used!
During our time in New Orleans, we will experience and "practice" Justice (our particular task is entitled "Cultural Literacy"), "practice" Peacemaking-where we will be trained to go out into the city and talk with people about their lives and share a little bit about ours; and "practice" Discipleship-where we will gather with 418 other youth from our own synod and look at how scripture directs us to be disciples for the Lord Jesus! There will be amazing worship experiences each night at the Super Dome, and opportunities for a "safe nightlife" in our hotel as well as early morning worships there as well. Workshops and lots of fun will be had by all. There is a place to gather to do all kinds of crafts, experience music, even play basketball, football, throw Frisbee, even help build a Habitat for Humanity house! Of course, we will do some sight-seeing of this great city too!
We-Ann and Chloie Ottinger, Devan Cunningham, Jacob Aaroen, Michael Leonard, and myself-want
to thank you all from the bottom of all our hearts for helping us have this incredible experience. We could not have done it without you! Your prayers, your support, and your financial donations have made the difference, once again, for the youth of OSLC. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us, and you made it possible. THANK YOU!
We hope to bring back all kinds of excitement and inspiration to share with everyone! Keep those prayers going; they help us each day we are there!
By now, "...we are no longer strangers..." (Ephesians 2:19) with those we have been spending this week with; we are grateful to God for this opportunity, and gain, we thank God for all of you!
God loves you and so do I!
Pastor Jim
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Jesus Feeds The Five Thousand
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ELCA Youth Gathering Pictures
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GOSPEL FEST
You are invited to attend the 2012 Gospel Fest at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Blountville, TN, July 23-27. A schedule is listed below:
- MONDAY
- HYMN SINGING AND SCRIPTURE READING BY CONGREGATION REQUEST.
- THE IMMANUEL LUTHERAN CHURCH CHOIR WILL BE FEATURED ON THIS NIGHT.
- MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT PROVIDED BY ZACH SMITH AND JESSICA KEUP.
- TUESDAY
- MUSIC PROVIDED BY "DUTY FREE". DUTY FREE IS A MEN'S BLUEGRASS GOSPEL GROUP FROM BRISTOL.
- THE MESSAGE WILL BE PROVIDED BY PASTOR TOM QUICKLE FROM FAITH LUTHERAN CHURCH IN BRISTOL.
- WEDNESDAY
- MUSIC WILL BE PROVIDED BY MELISSA HIGHT WHO IS A VOICE MAJOR AT ETSU AND MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT WILL BE PROVIDED BY JESSICA KEUP.
- THURSDAY
- MUSIC WILL BE PROVIDED BY CHERYL WAMPLER.
- THE MESSAGE WILL BE PROVIDED BY HOWARD KANGAS.
- FRIDAY
- MUSIC WILL BE PROVIDED BY ZACH SMITH.
- THE MESSAGE WILL BE PROVIDED BY PASTOR JENNY VENABLE.
- THE SERVICE WILL CLOSE WITH THE SERVICE OF HEALING.
Immanuel Lutheran Church is located at 197 Central Heights Road across the street from Central Heights Elementary School. Central Heights Road is between the Tennessee Driver's License Office and Highway 394 to Blountville. Transportation will provided upon request. For further information or questions, please call the Church at 323-8933.
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July New Sense Available Online
The July edition of OSLC's monthly New Sense newsletter is available online, at the OSLC web site.
You may view the current New Sense edition by clicking here.
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Coming Up at OSLC
NATIONAL YOUTH GATHERING:
There are six people from OSLC who are attending the 2012 ELCA National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. Those attending are Jake Aaroen, Devan Cunningham, Michael Leonard, Chloie Ottinger, and adult advisors Ann Ottinger and Pastor Nipper. They will return Monday evening, July 23.
COVER GIRLS:
will meet Monday, July 23, 10:00 AM in the fellowship hall.
FRIENDSHIP SUNDAY:
Next Sunday, July 29, is Friendship Sunday. Invite someone (especially friends who are unchurched) to worship and remember to join us for "Coffee in the Garden" between services.
HYMN SING:
Sunday, July 29, 7:15 PM in the nave. For those interested, please sign your name and favorite hymn on the bulletin board across from the library. Come one! Cone all!
BABY SHOWER:
for Jennifer Akin will be held Saturday, July 21, 1:00 PM in the fellowship hall. Contact Chris Hyder (767-5076) for more information.
PASSWORD FOR THE WEB SITE:
There is a new password for getting into the Member Directory and other protected areas on the OSLC web site (oslc.cc). The password is: os123321 (lower-case letters 'o' and 's' followed by the digits 123321).
PRODUCTS OF THE MONTH :
for Ronald McDonald House:
High Efficiency laundry detergent, disposable cups ,tall kitchen bags,
Snacks such as Little Debbie cakes, chips, crackers, cookies.
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The OSLC Prayer List
Members:
Youth and advisors attending NYG; Patty Wessner; Brenda Whitson; James Flint; Mary King; Fred Beckelhimer; Kathy Leonard; Tony Bowman; Carolynn Bailey; Jesse Wolf; Lisa Pritchett; Wendi Garrison; Roger Bailey; Mary Ostermeyer; Carolyn Parrish; Doc Whitmore; Sonja Dalton; Jim Koller; Fern Street; Jennifer Stafford; Lisa Hembre (Africa - Peace Corps); Harold and Lori Markstrom.
Family Members and Friends: Alice Sulkowski; Jason Rakel; Roger Hawk; Nancy Bollinger; Terry Iiames; Deborah Hendricksen; Thelma Burton; Rosemary Beier; Doug Beier; Steve Smith; Jack Cannon; Pastor Don Fritz; Anita Jones; Linda Wright; Jerry Ottinger; Betty Essmann; Pastor Delmer Chilton; Bishop Gerald Troutman; Patrick Harger; Angela Carroll; Esther Hasselbeck; Brian Ivey; Cleo Holt (aunt of Barbara Diehl).
Military Service - Members:
Marie Strait (MC USN, Walter Reed National Medical Center, Bethesda, MD); Nick Harris (Air Force; Lakenheath, England).
Military Service - Friends and family:
Nick Hodge (Air Force) friend of the Flints; Chase Estep (Marines) brother of Clint Estep; Shawn Sieberg (Navy, New Orleans), Brent Sieberg (Navy, Italy) great nephews of Pat Wolf; Kevin Phillipps (Army) friend of the Wolfs; Alycia Horvath (Marines, Quantico, VA) great niece of Thomas Simonson; Matthew Sibenaller (Army, Afghanistan) godson of Ed Wolff; David Guck (Marines, King's Bay, GA) friend of the Wolfs; Michael Hudson, (US Coast Guard, Miami, FL) son of Charles and Carol Hudson; Nick Vogt (Army, Walter Reed) friend of Larry and Inez Glauer.
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A Meditation on Family
by the Rev. Dr. Delmer Chilton
Assistant to the Bishop
ELCA-Southeastern Synod
(Preached in Mary Horner Walker Memorial Presbyterian Church, Claudville, VA on Saturday, June16, at the Hubbard Family Reunion on the 100th Anniversary of Albert and Millie Hubbard building the house in which they raised their family of 10 children.)
Matthew 7:24-25 - "Built On a Rock" When I was a little kid Grandma Hubbard often called me "Frank." She didn't do it deliberately or as a joke; she did it, she said, because I reminded her of him so much. His picture hung in her bedroom. I used to go and stand on the couch so that my head was as high as his next to the picture and look across the room at the big mirror on the back of her dresser, trying to see if we looked anything alike. We didn't, not really. Grandma said it was not so much the way I looked but rather the way I acted that made her think of Frank. And the thing is, I have no way to know anything about any of that. He died over ten years before I was born, on a ship in the Pacific. He was nineteen at the time. Over the years it has been a strange feeling to know that attitudes and behaviors that I think are uniquely me perhaps really aren't. Apparently, genetics has an effect on more than just our facial features, our waistlines and our cholesterol. Our genes can shape the way we think and the way we behave. As we look around this room many of us are biologically related, others of us have married into this gene pool and have children who have Albert and Millie's genes, among other donors. And the question comes, what does it mean to be connected to people this way? What does it mean to be an extended family, to trace your beginnings back to certain people and to acknowledge a relationship, a kinship, and an obligation to people with whom you have very little else in common? Religiously, we're everything from indifferent agnostics to middling Methodists and lukewarm Lutherans: with Baptists, and Disciples, and Episcopalians, and the occasional Hebrew and Jehovah's Witness thrown in for good measure. Politically, we have Libertarian Tea Partiers, never -voteds, a Republican politician, and a liberal, yellow-dog Democrat who's voted a straight Democratic ticket in every election since 1972 (that would be me.) We are across the spectrum in economic status and education and profession and where we live and what we like to do for fun. We really have nothing in common but each other, the fact that we are family. I played around on ancestry.com a little bit last year and found I could trace a direct line from Daddy all the way back to a Chilton born in eastern Virginia in 1620. And the odd thing was that past Grandpa Chilton, my daddy's daddy with whom I spent a lot of time when I was a kid, it didn't matter much to me. It was interesting, in a history sort of way, but it didn't seem any more connected to me than reading about George Washington or the Puritans or something. All of which leads me to reflect that family is a combination of those old chestnuts; nature and nurture. Our nature, our genes, gives us physical things that we have no real control over. Our biology connects us to one another in important ways. But our nurture, our "raisings," does too. And I think a good case can be made that our nurture plays a larger hand in determining what sort of folks we become. Perhaps my similarity to Frank was a combination of genetics and of being raised by Frank's little sister and having almost weekly contact with Frank's mother. It is both a mystery and a gift. Which is my definition of family; a mystery and a gift. My boys weren't given to melodrama, but at least once in their early teens each of them angrily told me that he had not asked to be born, particularly not as my son. And I told them that while I had participated in the act that brought them into existence, they weren't exactly what I had been looking for either, but we were apparently stuck with each other and we may as well make the best of it. Embracing and exploring the mystery of our stuck-together-ness.; of who we are and how we got that way, is what opens us up to the giftedness of it all. Albert and Millie built a house and a home full of people who were allowed to think for themselves, who were expected to make their own way in the world, who were never allowed to, in the biblical phrase, "think more highly of themselves than they ought," who had a healthy respect for their neighbors and their community, and who followed their conscience in matters religious and moral. It seems to me that this is the rock upon which this extended family has been built and it is the gift that has been bequeathed to all of us; whether we were born in, married in, or adopted in, legally or otherwise. Our mystery and our gift is that we are a community that is a family in which everyone is cherished and encouraged and when we need to leave, we are sent out with love and blessings; and we need to return, we are received with open arms. Amen and amen.
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