The Summit

If you have not turned in your 2010 pledge cards, volunteer sheet or email address card, please drop them off in the church office. Our stewardship challenge is 1 and 1. Please consider adding one additional activity from the volunteer sheet and prayerfully consider increasing your financial stewardship by 1%.

by Pastor Meier

You hopefully received your stewardship packet in the mail this week, which contained the two pledge cards (green for general/benevolence and blue for building debt reduction). You also received a pink volunteer form, as we need to seek out more worship service involvement, especially at the 10:30 service. And there is a little form to submit your current e-mail, so we can form that database.

At both services this Sunday, November 15, we will offer our 2010 pledges at the altar. If you are not able to be here Sunday, the office would appreciate it if you would come by or mail them in at your earliest convenience. This will help us prepare a more accurate budget for the coming year. Thanks for your cooperation.

Our stewardship theme, as you know, is “Make It Simple.” Living simply by prioritizing that which is most important in life begins when we offer our time, talent, and treasure to the Lord. If you wish to read more about this, you can go to our website, www.alpinelutheran.com , and click on the stewardship icon.

 Inside page

Philippians 4:11b-13 I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

What does “contentment” feel like? This is a difficult question in our current culture. When surveys have asked “How much is enough?” responses have consistently been “Twenty percent more than I have now.” If that is true, how do we break the endless circle that this leads us toward—it is always “twenty percent more.” We are told over and over every day—“You don’t have enough…What you have is fragile and could be gone at any moment…You have to go get more!” These messages come from a world focused on scarcity.

In this setting how do we understand our relationship with God? God is creator—we are God’s creatures. How do we live in relationship with our creator? Martin Luther reminds us in his explanation of the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed “that God has created me and all that exists…God daily and abundantly provides…all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life…out of pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all!” It is in this relationship that we recognize that God has abundantly provided us with all that we need. Living in that abundance we give of the blessings we have received.

If we focus on the scarcity, we never have enough. When we focus on God’s abundant blessings, there is more than we can ever imagine. Recognizing God’s abundant blessings we experience Paul’s message to the Philippians in our own lives. We can be content with what we have because we know that we are blessed and can “do all things through him who strengthens us.”

John 13:34-35 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. In the upper room, at the Last Supper, Jesus gives this new commandment to his disciples, to love one another. They (we) are to love one another “as he has loved” them (us). It is about witness to the world. It is how the world around us will see and know that we are disciples of Jesus. This commandment is about community. It is about the common good. It is about our living as disciples of Jesus. He commands that we follow him together. He commands us to love one another.

These are strange and foreign words in a culture that worships individualism. It is an odd concept in an economy that is based on the premise that the one who dies with the most “things” wins. It is hard to comprehend this commandment in a time where we all seek something more—more house, more car, more status, more power, more “stuff.” In this drive for “more” we find ourselves isolated and feeling alone. We are driven to protect our stuff. So we fear our neighbor, we build higher fences and security systems, we live in fear of losing what we have accumulated.

Jesus commands us to love one another—he calls us into relationships, he calls us into his community. His command is to love one another “as he has loved us!” In this community we move into relationship with Jesus and one another.

This truly is a radical command—in our culture of individualism, none of us has enough. We all are driven to get more. But in this community of Jesus’ disciples, we begin to see that God provides us with more than enough!

Psalm 51:10-12 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit withinme. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Mark 4:37-41 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the seas, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Why is it so hard to MAKE IT SIMPLE? We face daily a complex world of our own making. We feel pushed and pulled by forces beyond our control. And when things feel like they are out of our control, we often feel afraid. We become like the disciples in the boat with Jesus. We are afraid that we are perishing, tossed about by the “wind and the waves” in our lives.

Imagine being one of the disciples in the boat. When you decide to wake Jesus up, what would you expect of him? What do you need from Jesus in the midst of the storms of your life? Can you hear Jesus’ question in the moments of calm in your life? “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”

Jesus’ question can lead us to hear the words of the psalmist, “Create in me, O God…put a new and right spirit within me…Do not cast me away…do not take away…Restore to me…sustain in me…” Look at all that God does in our lives. Where do we focus? On the wind and waves? Can we focus instead on what God provides? And how do our choices matter for what we see?

by Denny White Oct 25, 2009

I imagine that by now some of you are asking: What does “Make It Simple” mean? I keep hearing and reading about it but I don’t understand. Well, it is the theme for this year’s Stewardship Campaign. The program was developed by the ELCA and contains material for our consideration as we approach Stewardship Sunday.

OUR Stewardship Sunday is going to be November 15^th, which is just 3 weeks away. Once again we will have an opportunity to offer our pledges for the coming year.

Our Stewardship committee has chosen the “Make it Simple” resource because it provides examples and information to help us think about our own personal Stewardship as a lot more than a Sunday morning event when we make a monetary commitment to our church. It encourages each one of us to consider whether we have a balanced life style. If we have over committed our time, or find our life bogged down by all of our “stuff”, or if we have slipped into some unproductive habits , we may not be serving God to our full potential with a portion of what He has given us. This includes our Time, our Talents and our financial support to our church.

Even though we are in a time of economic uncertainty we can take comfort in knowing that we are loved and cared for by a God that is not handicapped by a recession, a god that has not made cutbacks in his services. Our God has had a universal health care plan in force since Adam and Eve Days. He is still on the job as they say 24/7. We have this assurance in the familiar bible verse- Hebrews 13:8 that says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Because God is so committed to taking care of us, I think we need to be committed to serving him the best we can.

In your worship folder you will find a insert entitled “Following Jesus” . You will receive a similar bulletin insert each of the next 3 weeks. The back side of some of these will have a Percentage Giving Chart. I ask that you take each of these home with you, read them, and think about what God has given You as you plan what you will do for him in the coming year. Could you make some simple adjustments in your life style and increase your giving this year. Could you serve in a new way in your church. Is this the year you will join a bible study or one of our committees. Pastor Meier, a Council member or any of our Ministry leaders would love to discuss service or spiritual growth opportunities with you. Wherever your faith level is presently, let it become even greater in the coming year.

I have one more request:

Please sign up to attend the Alpine 50^thAnniversary/Stewardship Dinner on Sunday evening, November 8^th at 6 pm. There is a signup sheet in the narthex. This is a significant milestone for Alpine Lutheran Church, so please attend this dinner and celebration. We will take a look back at our past as we step into our future.

Thank You

by Terry Hodges Oct, 2009

This is the theme of this year’s Stewardship program. A concept that offers appeal to many of us.

Simple living however does not imply simplistic thinking.
I am reminded of the joke about the Simplified IRS Form 1040.

Line A How much did you make
Line B How much do you have left
Line C Send in the amount on Line B

Serious consideration of the stewardship of our time, talent and treasures should be simple but it is certainly not simplistic.

Throughout the history of Christianity, communities of God’s people have struggled in various ways with issues related to their manner of life. In the Constantinian era, devout men and women, concerned that many Christians were adopting the extravagances of their non-believing neighbors, fled to the desert to pursue an ascetic lifestyle. St. Francis of Assisi, according to tradition, rejected the materialism of his father and embraced a simple way of life free from dependence on possessions.

One of the precipitating causes of the Reformation of the sixteenth century was Martin Luther’s strong reaction to the lifestyle excesses of the Pope.
Lifestyle matters—particularly a yearning for a return to a simpler, less consumer
oriented way of living—are on the minds of many contemporary Americans. There is increasingly a tension between the world of marketing with its relentless quest to convince us that we need more, bigger, better and the inklings of thoughtful people that the unbridled acquisition of things of contemporary American society is neither satisfying in the short run nor sustainable in the long run. Everything we own, in a sense, owns us—as we find ourselves forced to take care of it and protect it, and ultimately replace it when it inevitably wears out. Our possessions make things possible but can place limits on our possibilities.

Over the coming weeks we will consider Following Jesus, Facing the Truth, Acting Together and Sharing Enough as we better understand how we might strive to Make It Simple. Carrie Ralston is making a banner for us that you will see in the next couple of weeks. We start with an Adult forum today between services with some short videos that can help us thoughtfully consider how we might pursue simpler living. We plan to have a congregational dinner on November 8th when we will celebrate Alpine’s 50 years at our Forest View location.

On Sunday November 15 we will make our annual commitment to the ministries of Alpine. With the current turmoil in our economy, we face challenges to our views of what makes us happy and where we can turn for security and comfort. Please give serious consideration to the ideas of Make It Simple. They can help us evaluate our priorities as we seek true peace and security in the values and fellowship of our Christian heritage.

Step out of Faith
Minnesota church expands during recession

Involuntary Simplicity
Flood of St.John Church in Wisconsin