Year in Review

Yes, it's been quite a while since we posted information to this site! Blame it on busy schedules and a lack of news to report. Hopefully both will improve, but I'm not making any promises at this point!

Meanwhile, here are a few highlights from the last year at Life in Christ Lutheran Church:

• We welcomed some new members, including the Mesenbring, Bockovich and Berglund families.
• For the third summer, we conducted a second Sunday service at Heston's lodge at the end of the Gunflint Trail. We thank Gecas's for hosting our service at their lodge and look forward to having services there again this summer.
• This summer we did Vacation Bible School a little differently - instead of having classes each morning for a week, we had them one morning a week for six weeks. This schedule was much easier on both teachers and parents, and we're planning to do VBS this way again this coming year.
• This fall we began having a Sunday school after church. It's a pleasure to see the little children learning about Jesus, their Savior!
• On the down side, we continue to struggle financially. Our pastor's final compensation in 2008, including benefits, was about 46% of his designated compensation package. So far this year is looking about the same - please keep us in your prayers on this matter!

Summer Potluck

One Sunday, July 29, Life in Christ members from town joined the members who meet at 11:30 at Heston's Lodge on the Gunflint Trail. After the service, everyone gathered for a potluck dinner, loaded with all kinds of great dishes. A short voter's meeting followed the dinner.

Baptism

On Sunday, July 1, 2007, we were happy to welcome Kendra Berglund into the Christian church through baptism. Congratulations to Kendra's parents, David & Heidi Berglund, and to big brother Spencer. We wish all God's blessings to Kendra.

Fire News

Just a quick update - the Ham Lake fire burns on, and the evacuation is still in effect north of County Road 85 on the Gunflint Trail. That includes all the area around Gunflint Lake.

While we were delighted to see the Gecas's in church today, we were sorry that the reason they were in town and not busy with the fishing opener was because they'd been evacuated and their home and livelihood is in very real danger from the fires. We were also sorry to hear that so many of the cabins where our summer guests vacation have been destroyed by the fires. How appropriate that today's readings focused on prayer! Our prayers are certainly with the Gecas's, the Preuss's, and all who've lost property and/or had to leave their homes due to the fire.

Today was another high-danger day as winds were expected to rise and blow the fire towards the homes and businesses on the south shore of Gunflint Lake. We haven't heard yet what happened on the fire today, but the good news is that the winds here near the Lake stayed mild all day. I hope they were as mild up on the Gunflint Trail.

To see lots of fire photos and pictures of the devastation, click here, and please remember our people in your prayers!

Potluck Dinner ends in Flames

On Sunday, May 6, Life in Christ held a potluck dinner after the morning church services. Why? Just because! As usual there was plenty of wonderful food for everyone, but the morning took an interesting twist when people suddenly started coming in and moving tables around.

Soon we found out why they were here - the sheriff had ordered a mandatory evacuation on the Gunflint Trail due to the Ham Lake fire (see http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=41732&section=homepage&freebie_check&CFID=33676342&CFTOKEN=40918805&jsessionid=8830a78f60e1654ed4e4 for the latest on this fire) and the Community Center, our meeting place, was needed as a check-in point for evacuees.

Needless to say we finished our dinner and cleaned up as quickly as we could. Meanwhile, our prayers go out to the victims of this fire, which had already destroyed over 40 structures and one business as of this morning, and grew rapidly today.

If you're interested in a first-hand report on the fire, the best I've found is the Boundary Waters Blog. Please keep our members and neighbors in your prayers as we deal with fires, evacuations, and lost properties. We are thankful that so far there has been no loss of life.

Installation Service

On Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 4:00 pm Pastor Dennis Schutte was installed as the full-time pastor for Life in Christ Lutheran Church in Grand Marais, MN. Vicar David Dusek preached and Pastor David Schoessow conducted the service and installation.

The installation service was followed by an excellent meal served by the ladies of Life in Christ. Congratulations, Pastor Schutte!

Call Accepted

On Sunday, January 7, Pastor Dennis Schutte announced that he had accepted the call to serve as pastor at Life in Christ Lutheran Church. We wish him God's blessings as he starts this new phase of his ministry here in Cook County.

Pastor Schutte's installation service is set for Sunday, January 21, at 4:00 pm in the Cook County Community Center in Grand Marais.

Call Issued

On Monday, December 18, Life in Christ Lutheran Church issued a call to Paster Dennis Schutte to serve as the full-time paster of Life in Christ. Pastor Schutte is currently serving Life in Christ as a missionary-at-large called by the Minnesota North District. If Pastor Schutte accepts the call he will be serving the congregation directly as their pastor, rather than through the District. Being a missionary will continue to be a major part of his calling, however.

Please remember us in your prayers as Pastor Schutte deliberates this call.

Advent Services Starting

We're starting our Advent services this Wednesday, December 6. Services will be at 6:30 pm at the Grand Marais Senior Center. We'll be using the Vespers service from the new Lutheran Service Book, and all are welcome as we prepare to meet our Savior.

New Hymnals

As pretty much every member of the Missouri Synod knows (unless you haven't been reading your mail or paying attention to the synod's news) we have a new hymnal, called the Lutheran Service Book. There's a ton of information available about it so I won't go into a lot of detail here - if you're interested in finding out more about it start at http://lsb.cph.org/. Suffice it to say that a lot of work went into the new hymnal, preserving (or restoring) the old hymns while introducing many new ones, making it easier to use and overall doing everything possible to make it a good worship resource both in the church and home.

At the July voter's meeting, the members of Life in Christ voted to begin using the new hymnal when it was available, and members were given the opportunity to buy copies to donate to the church or for their home use. Thanks to the generosity of our members, we were able to purchase all the copies needed without dipping into the church treasury! The hymnals are here and as of Reformation Sunday, October 29, we began using the new Lutheran Service Book. So far the response of our members has been very positive.

For me, some of the things I like are:

1. Bible references have been included, both for the hymns and for the different sections of the liturgy.
2. Some of the translations, tunes and accompaniments that were not so good in the Lutheran Worship have been restored or redone.
3. A lot has been included so that the hymnal can be used as a devotional book in the home. For example, there's a nice section of prayers for personal use at the beginning of the hymnal.
4. One of my favorite hymns (At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing) has been moved from the Easter section to The Lord's Supper - we can sing it all year round now!

Things I wish they'd done differently:

1. They took a lot of the accompaniments out and just have the melody line for many hymns. I grew up with the hymns being played at home from TLH, and learned to play hymns myself from the pew edition we all had in our homes. It seems like they've taken some opportunities away from young musicians and families who want to use the hymnal in their homes by having many accompaniments only available in the rather expensive accompaniment edition.
2. There are only 3 hymns for Trinity Sunday, and the Death and Burial section was removed. (Funeral hymns are now under Hope and Comfort.)

Overall, the new Lutheran Service Book is very well done and I think it will be an asset to our church for many years to come.

New Newsletter

Life in Christ is moving to a new format for our newsletter. We'll be publishing it as a blog using Google's blogger service. We hope this new format will make it easier for us to keep the newsletter up-to-date. You can see the old newsletter articles on our website at http://www.boreal.org/~lcms/archive.html.