Our newest stained glass window, The Resurrection, has been installed in the columbarium as a memorial gift from the Lyle Erickson Family. The scene has been created based on John 19:41-42 and John 20:14-18:
“There was a new tomb in the garden and Jesus was laid there. Early the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw the stone had been rolled away from the entrance and the burial cloth put aside. She turned around and saw Jesus. When He spoke 'Mary', she cried out ‘Rabboni’. Jesus said, 'Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go, tell my brothers that I am returning to my Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.' "
The window was designed by Betty Braig, MVLC member, and fabricated by Kachina Glass, Mesa. It was formally dedicated at worship services on November 2nd and 3rd.
As a service project for our Fall LWML Zone Rally, we collected and filled 57 Purses of Hope for the Genesis Project in Apache Junction (a 501c3 organization which feeds the homeless and offers other services like shower vouchers). Our gently used purses were filled with new items: socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, nail polish and remover pads, nail clippers, lotion, sunscreen, lip balm, pens, pencils, colored pencils, adult coloring books, a Gospel of John, and more. We also included a handwritten note of encouragement for each homeless recipient. Additional purses and donated items we couldn't use or that were excess went to other charitable groups for distribution.
Back in the early part of the summer, Pastor Tim Ahlman and Pastor Jake Boessling of Christ's Greenfield Lutheran Church reached out to Pastor Mark Friedrich and me with an interesting proposal. They asked us to approach our Mountain View Lutheran Voter's Assembly to consider involving the congregation as a ministry and financial backer of a new Christ's Greenfield campus in Eastmark. On Sunday, November 10, the Voter's Assembly voted to approve a $100,000 gift to Christ's Greenfield in support of this new ministry.
So Where is Eastmark?
The Eastmark / East Mesa community is located between Ellsworth and Signal Butte south of Elliot. This area has been a neighborhood that both Mountain View and Christ's Greenfield had identified as a location for future ministry over the last few years and both congregations have had a strong desire to see a new church planted there. The East Mesa area is projected to grow from 275,000 residents to over 400,000. If you take a drive and look around at the houses being built from Gilbert to Mesa and from Queen Creek to San Tan Valley to Apache Junction, you can see this growth coming.
Why back Christ's Greenfield and not do this ourselves?
Christ's Greenfield already has 50 families living in the Eastmark community and is ready to launch services in 2020 with over 100 people. The congregation is ready to go there now and is planning for services to start before Easter of 2020. Christ's Greenfield has had a team meeting now for over a year and have a leadership lined up with Pastor Jake Boessling and Vicar Jeff Sutherlin, who will be ordained in January. In addition to their pastoral leadership, they also will have a DCE intern and hospitality director on site, plus an entire worship team and site manager who will help them in set up and tear down each week.
They have found a space.
Christ's Greenfield has signed a contract with Silver Valley Elementary School to be able to use the school on Sunday for worship. This new elementary school, which opened in 2019 already has 700 students, and on Sundays those families will have the opportunity to worship and learn about God in the same place their children learn math, science, history and English.
They are ready.
Preview services will begin in early 2020 and community worship will begin two weeks before Easter this coming spring.
So, why do they need our help?
Because launching a church is not cheap. A company called Portable Church has assessed their needs and has created blueprints, and layouts for every space in the school that Christ Greenfield will use for worship. They have listed out all the supplies, all the equipment and all the storage they need to launch worship at Silver Valley Elementary School. The total cost to launch is around $300,000. This will buy the staging and worship space design, the a/v equipment, instruments, the pulpit, the lectern, the altar, seating, Sunday School equipment, supplies, the signage for the church and much more. With these supplies Christ Greenfield will be able to arrive at Silver Valley Elementary School on a Sunday morning and be ready to worship 90 minutes later.
Doing this any other way would actually cost a lot more money. The congregation my family worshiped at in New York actually renovated an older LCMS church and relaunched worship in that space. It cost them 100's of thousands of dollars to do it, and it took almost a decade to go from dreaming about it, to buying the property until services began on a Sunday morning. Christ's Greenfield's approach in going into this elementary school and doing worship there is arguably a more effective way to at least begin ministry in the area, and is definitely more cost effective. And, even if they were to build their own church, all the supplies being purchased could be used in that place as well.
So why are we doing this? Why spend $100,000 on a sister church's mission?
We are doing this because people need Jesus. If we can help reach a population that in a new part of town does it really matter what the name on the church is. Christ's Greenfield is our sister church. We are one in confession and we are one in faith.
The second reason is because we are not ready to do this ourselves. We have things we need to focus on here at 2122 S. Goldfield Road. Yet, by watching Christ's Greenfield and helping them, we can learn, and we can get ready. They are at the forefront of something neat for the East Valley, but ten years from now, because of their efforts, if we work together, we too could be in a position to be planting daughter churches. We can learn from their joys, sorrows, failures and successes. They are willing to have us bring lay leaders alongside them to learn this process from them so that we can begin looking at launching new services here and elsewhere that could reach people we are not currently reaching.
We are also doing this because The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod needs stories of growth. As a church body we are closing churches a lot faster than we are opening them. In 2019, only eight LCMS churches opened. Eight. Five of them were in the Pacific south west. If we want to grow Christ's kingdom in the LCMS, but also here in our city, in Apache Junction, in Mesa, in Phoenix, we need to be willing to work with our brothers and sisters who are doing exactly that.
Growing Christ Kingdom.
Ultimately growing Christ's Kingdom is our mission. Our mission is to spread the message of Christ to the community and the world. This is why we have the Growing Christ's Kingdom Fund. We have the ability to help them. Even after this large financial gift, the Growing Christ's Kingdom Fund will continue to have plenty of funds for us to continue planning for not just our future, but the future of the valley as well. As we plan for the future, I thank you all for your boldness in standing with our brothers and sisters at Christ's Greenfield in deciding to reach Eastmark, with the truth of the Gospel. All those who will hear of Christ's love in that place, will hear it in part because of the decision you have made.
May the kingdom continue to grow and may relationships and partnerships continue to blossom for the sake of those who still need to know the Love of Christ.
The video below was filmed by Fox 10 News earlier in the school year. It gives a glimpse of Silver Valley Elementary School, the teachers and the students who are part of this school family and residents of the Eastmark community.
The video below was recently posted by several other Lutheran churches on the 502nd anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. The interviewer had never visited a Lutheran church and had lots of questions as he met with the pastor. The church he chose to visit was St. Paul Lutheran Church of Hamel, Illinois. The pastor he interviewed is Pastor William Weedon, an assistant pastor of the congregation who also serves as Chaplain at the Synodical headquarters in St. Louis.
For those who are life-long Lutherans this interview provides a refresher on church theology and practices which might be taken for granted. Things such as the liturgy, Sacraments, stained glass windows and church architecture are discussed as connections to Martin Luther and the Reformation. For those unfamiliar with Lutheran doctrine and practice, the video might provide good insights.
There is a follow up to the video which might also be of interest. Enjoy!
This is the follow-up video to the video above, as Pastor Weedon goes into depth about Lutheran theology and practice, responding to questions from "the outsider."
