Truth and Healing: a look at Indigenous History

In 2023 the ELCA initiated the Truth and Healing Movement to learn the true history and current realities of Indigenous people.  Join us as we explore together the colonizing impacts on Indigenous people in the past and present.  We believe that the truth, and our knowing and embracing it, is the first step toward healing for all of us.

Session 4 – November 17^th – Where Do We Go From Here? – Relationships,   Remembering, Advocacy 

· Led by Dr. Lucas Kelley

Leading this series is Dr. Lucas Kelley.  Dr Kelley is on the faculty at Valparaiso University and a historian of Native American history and the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century United States.  Also joining us will be Deaconess Lisa Polito, Executive Director of the Lutheran Diaconal Association. Lisa grew up in Minnesota on the White Earth Indian Reservation; her father is a tribal member and she is a tribal descendant. 

Bring your coffee and join us for this Faith Formation Series.  We start each session promptly at 9:20am.

Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

Continuing with our tradition at CLC, we are taking up a collection for Christmas gifts for our CLC Staff.  If you are interested in contributing, please either drop off your contribution to Jen at the church office or place it in the offering plate with the designation “Staff Christmas Gift.”  It is our intention to divide the funds evenly among all of our CLC staff.

Christmas will be here before you know it, please have all contributions in by Sunday, December 22. If you have any questions, please contact any Church Council Officer.

YOUTH MINISTRY UPDATES

CLC Silent Auction Season!

It’s that time of year again… CLC’s annual Silent Auction! From October 20th-November 17th, the Silent Auction will be taking place with all items on display in the East Link. All proceeds will go toward faith formation events for our youth, such as Quake, Confirmation Camp, mission trips, and Youth Gathering. These events transform the faith of our youth and are memories they look back on; faith formation events impact our youth in ways that cannot be put into words, drawing them closer to one another and to God!  Thank you for the ways you support our youth!

ELCA Formation Co-Op

This past May, our congregation was selected to be a part of the ELCA Youth Network’s Formation Co-Op! The Formation Co-Op aims to explore new frameworks for youth ministry to “root young people in a lifelong and transformative faith in Jesus.” Congregations that are selected enter a two-year intentional listening process, paired with research, to develop new youth ministry frameworks that are suitable for the specific congregation’s context. 

There are many individuals from CLC who have been a part of this process thus far and are passionate about the ways in which we can adapt our youth ministry structure to be more inclusive to all youth in our community. As we begin the listening stage of our process, we invite you to attend a listening session to share your insights and perspectives; it is our hope to include all voices in this process so that no one is left unheard. Your voice is important in the development and changes we are hoping to make to our framework and so we hope you will attend and share your ideas and thoughts with our group!

Listening sessions will be occurring in November and December during the faith formation hour, so please be on the lookout for further information relating to those sessions. Also, if you are interested in volunteering and being a part of this process, please reach out to Kaitlyn. We will be looking for individuals who have a passion for designing new structures as well as individuals who are passionate about implementation and experimentation. If you have been wondering about the ways God might be calling you to walk alongside our youth, we hope you will prayerfully consider this opportunity!

Fellowship at the Circle Table!

If you are like me and love to cook, there is a wonderful opportunity to help provide dinners for our high school group, Circle! Every Sunday from 6-8pm, our high schoolers meet for a time of community, conversation, and faith formation. Part of this time together includes a meal in which we can be together in fellowship. This has been a long-time tradition at Circle, because we know the beautiful ways in which a shared meal deepens the relationships between our youth! If you are interested in providing a meal for Circle, please sign-up using the Sign-Up Genius.    Our high schoolers love connecting with the individuals who help provide dinners for Circle and it is just one of the many ways we grow and nurture our relationships with all here at CLC!

Stephen Ministry ~ Here to help!              “I will not leave you…”

Typically, starting or adding to a family or bringing two families together, brings great joy.  For some though, it can become a time of great stress and bewilderment.   Pregnancy, child-birth, adoption or other issues can bring challenges. Whether everything goes as expected or complications surface, we may struggle with the situation or where to turn for help and support.  It’s also not unusually for people to feel confused, afraid, hurt or even rejected by God. 

The promise at the heart of scripture is that we are never alone.  Our loving God is with us and offers strength.  Regardless of what we face, there is help, unfailing love and people willing to walk with us and listen. CLC has a group of well-trained, faithful persons with a heart to care, offering support and encouragement.  We can help. 

Specially trained Stephen Ministers are always available to walk with you, listen to you, confidentially and faithfully.  We wear those blue name tags or contact either Pastor; their confidential email is:  pastors@clcvalpo.org or call 219-462-6660.

Pajamas and Slippers for Kids at the Crisis Center

This Advent season we are partnering with Bethel Lutheran Church to provide pajamas and slippers for kids who come to the Crisis Center in Gary, Indiana.  The youth who come to the Crisis Center are in need of emergency shelter and come to stay there needing basic daily items. This year, Bethel and CLC are providing pajamas and slippers for the Crisis Center to have available for the youth who come in need of emergency services. The donations are for kids aged 10-20 but most of the kids fall in the age range of 12-17.

The Crisis Center began as a crisis hotline with volunteers in 1971 and has grown to include the Alternative House emergency shelter for children and youth, Safe Place outreach to youth in crisis and Teen Court prevention and early intervention services for youth.   

If you’d like to help, please take an Angel ornament (with sizes indicated on it) from the display in the Gathering space and return the pajamas and /or slippers by December 1^st.  Attach the Angel ornament to your gift.  Please leave the gifts unwrapped – though if you would like to include a reusable shopping bag, feel free to add one that the kids can reuse.

Have questions?  Contact Kathy Sutherland or a member of the Social Ministries Committee. 

November Altar Gifts

Holy Communion          Grace Safrin ~ Celebrating the birthday of Kelly Kozloski

Altar Candles                  Dot Ruuska ~ In Memory of Whitey

Eternal Lamp                  Lois & Michael Felten ~ In Memory of Paul Bretscher

As the new shelter in Valparaiso, Daybreak, prepares to open in early 2025, we need all hands on deck. We are calling on our friends and volunteers from New Creation, PADS, Living Hope's warming center, and everyone else who has supported our unhoused neighbors, to break bread with the folks from the new shelter and learn how you and your organization can help feather the nest and warm the new building. The evening will provide time to share a meal, discuss operations of the new facility, begin signing up individuals and agencies to volunteer at the new shelter, and fundraise to help support the initial start-up costs of the shelter.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend and help spread the word among anyone else you think may be interested in supporting the cause!

Thank you for all the good you have done and continue to do in the community,

Sam Burgett/Respite House and New Creation 

Senior Group

All are welcome!!

November 21, 2024  ~ We have two speakers!

9:30 am  Meet at church for coffee, sweets and a presentation from our very own Bob Hall as he discusses the book he recently self published on Amazon:  Good Losers, a fictional story about a college sports announcer.  He will share the self publishing process, what prompted him to write, and an acknowledgement and appreciation of the art assistance completed by Jane Schreiner, a local Lutheran Deaconess.  Feel free to ask questions about the writing process, etc. 

11:00 am We are please to welcome Pastor Karl Biermann, Regional Gift Planner for the ELCA Foundation (Indiana, Kentucky, and Southern Ohio). Pastor Karl will speak on  “Leave a Living Legacy”

Pastor Karl Biermann 

A 2004 Trinity Lutheran Seminary graduate, Pastor Karl Biermann served as a parish pastor for 10 years in his native Texas before answering the call in 2014 to serve as assistant to the bishop in the Northeastern Ohio Synod (Cleveland/Akron/Youngstown). 

Pr. Biermann and his wife of almost 26 years, Lana, enjoyed living in Ohio during his seminary studies in Columbus, pastoral internship at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Upper Arlington (Columbus), and campus ministry experience at Capital University. 

Pr. Biermann and Lana have a 19-year-old college student daughter and 17-year-old high school senior son. Beloved home base is Centerville, Ohio near Dayton, so that Pastor Biermann might be more centrally located for his ministry as the ELCA Foundation’s Regional Gift Planner for Indiana, Kentucky, and Southern Ohio—a call in which he has served since May 2021. 

Make an Impact! Leave a Living Legacy! 

Pastor Karl Biermann and the ELCA Foundation are Here to Help 

Want to make an impact by providing financially and tax-efficiently for family, Christ Lutheran Church, and other cherished ELCA ministries now and after death but wonder how? Want to take stock of the assets God gifted you with and see how they might be utilized to support your family, ministry, and charity? 

Pastor Karl Biermann with the ELCA Foundation is ready to work with you at-no-cost to transform your hopes into a legacy giving plan. You can update your legacy plan as often as needed free of charge without changing your will. 

Be sure and ask Pastor Karl about his work helping organize and grow congregational mission endowment funds, as well as about the ELCA Foundation’s investment management services. 

It is never too early to start planning your living legacy. Pastor Karl and the ELCA Foundation look forward to being of service to you! 

Please bring something sweet to share with our coffee if you have time. 

December 14, 2024, 2:00 p.m. (Saturday, so please note!)  -

"Scrooge the Musical" at the Valpo's Memorial Opera House.

Please see Marilyn McGawn who is spearheading collection of the $15 ticket fee (the senior rate with more than ten in a group).  Tickets are going fast, so please contact Marilyn directly for your ticket(s).  Kindly arrange your own car pooling if needed.  If you have questions, please see Marilyn McGawn.   

If questions, on the above, please contact Beth at 219 477 3937.   

Social Ministry Monthly Emphasis

November 2024

Social Ministry Emphasis for November.  Each month the Social Ministry Committee highlights a special giving opportunity.  Nov. 2024’s specific emphasis is providing support for the Lutheran Diaconal Association www.thelda.org.  Below is a message to CLC from LDA:

• “Since 1919, the Lutheran Diaconal Association has formed people for ministries of service.  In the early years we trained women primarily as nurses serving in missions and institutions of the church.  Our ministries have changed throughout the last 104 years.  Today we serve in congregations, in institutions and wherever God’s people are.
•  A deaconess or deacon is someone one who serves. Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and instructed them to do the same for others. Sometimes deaconesses and deacons do actual foot-washing like Jesus did; but more widely, they serve Christ by walking with those the world easily forgets; the marginalized, the poor, the powerless, the sick.
• People who reach out to others in this way—with care and compassion in a hurting world—are practicing diaconal service, as all the baptized are called to do.  Some of them desire to do this as a professional in ministry and enter a more formal training and formation process to become deaconesses and deacons.  Since the earliest days of the church men and women have been set apart to do intentional servant ministry.
• Deaconess/deacon ministry has come to mean many things: it means serving others on bended knee, and from positions of leadership. It means entering the hurt parts of society and carrying the light and love of Christ in service to others. It means telling the story of God’s love and helping others to hear God in their own story. It means welcoming the stranger in our midst. 
• Stories of ministry abound (pick up a copy of a LDA newsletters at CLC throughout the year).  We are nurses, lawyers, engineers, musicians, social workers, chaplains, parish deacons, teachers, campus chaplains, missionaries, professors and so much more. 

We are so grateful for our partnership with Christ Lutheran Church.  Your congregation has made a huge difference in our ministry.  Your prayer support and financial support are invaluable and help the LDA thrive and reach out to God’s people..  Thank you!  For more info www.theLDA.org We would love to talk with you! - see Deaconesses Edie Eickemeyer, Kristen Lewis, Pastor/Deaconess Jane Aicher, Karen Hernes, Diana Iltzsche, Kat Peters.

Help achieve our goal of $2500 in November (over and above giving combined with CLC’s $1200 budgeted amount).  By achieving our goal CLC will help Luth. Diaconal Assoc. continue mutual support and service activities that are crucial to effective ministry.  Use your weekly worship giving mailed in check to CLC and indicate “LDA” or contribute through Subsplash on the CLC website https://clcvalpo.org via the “Give” button and choose Monthly Social Ministry Emphasis.  Thank you to members for supporting monthly social ministry emphases.

Lutheran World Relief (LWR) Projects

The LWR truck came at the end of October and the layettes, personal care kits, and sewing kits that Sandy and Dave Keammerer coordinated were picked up for shipment abroad. And guess what? Now that it is November, they start all over again gathering items for these kits for 2025!

While many items in these kits are donated by CLC members, other items are purchased in-bulk to finish the kits and save costs. That means the Keammerers need funds for this ministry.

To assist in this ministry at CLC, I have applied for and received a Thrivent Action Grant that will provide $250 for these LWR projects. However, I would like to see that $250  grow to $750 (or more), but I need your help! For the month of November, I will match dollar for dollar your donation to the LWR projects up to a maximum of $250. This means we could reach the $750 goal—Thrivent Action Grant of $250, your total donations of $250 (or more), and my match up to a maximum of $250. Can you help with a small donation?  Does anyone want to join me and match the $250 Thrivent Action Grant too for even more funds?

Just put your donation in an envelope marked Thrivent- LWR- Match (or, if you write a check, write Thrivent- LWR- Match on the memo line) and place it the CLC collection plate on any Sunday in November or at the Thanksgiving Service!

If you have any questions, contact Karl Reichardt by email or mobile phone (karl.reichardt@valpo.edu, 219-252-9519).

Attention All CLC Youth:

I’d like to invite you once again to participate in the CLC Youth Orchestra for the 4:00 pm worship service on Christmas Eve. If you are interested, please speak to me after any of our Sunday worship services, or e-mail me at brian.bartusch@clcvalpo.org. Music will be available to pick up in the Music Room starting November 24^th. Brass, strings, woodwinds, and percussion are all welcome to participate!

Mr. Bartusch