Maranatha Evangelical Free Church June 2012 June Elder Report Upcoming Events Sunday Worship Times: I’m Pastor Dan. It’s my turn to give our 8:00, 9:25 , and 11:00 AM in monthly elder report. It’s been my privilege to the sanctuary serve the Lord as Senior Pastor for 14 years at Awakening at 10:30 AM in the Maranatha, and to serve as an elder at Maranatha Soul Garage for the past 7 years. Julie is my wife of 26 years. June 4—Monday Night Prayer She teaches 2nd grade at Cameron Elementary. in Maranatha’s conference room at 6:30 PM Besides being my big supporter in ministry, she shares her gifts and talents June 5,12,19 & 26th —every primarily in the areas of Worship and Dramatic Arts. We have two daughters. Tuesday, Victory Bound Katie is a junior at UWEC studying Biology and going toward some health Recovery at 6:00 PM in the profession. Holly is completing her Junior Year at Rice Lake High School and conference room by the works part-time at Rice Lake Convalescent Center. You might see her at Soul church offices. Open to anyone trying to overcome an Garage, or on a golf course, or operating our projection software in one of our addiction or behavior with the services. help of Christ. It’s been great as the leader of the June 11— Monday, Potting pastoral staff at Maranatha to watch how God is Class in the fellowship hall at 6:30 PM with Leah Margan of using our current pastoral team of Paul, Tony Blue View Nursery. Must RSVP. and me. In May, our elder board voted to extend Cost for class is $25 with check a calling to Anthony (Andrea) Hubin to come to made out to Blue View. Maranatha as our Worship Arts Pastor. Anthony June 13—Wednesday, Aqua- accepted our call and is scheduled to start Fest Worship Concert at 7:00 th PM in the sanctuary with Jerry leading worship on July 29 . Pray for the Williams and Taken. Hubin’s transition from China, where they are teaching English, to the states June 13—Wednesday, Middle and then to Maranatha. We want to thank our Worship Arts Search Team School Bonfire and Campout which invested so much time and talent into this process: Scott Carlson, at Hultman’s at 6:30 PM, Senior High Senior Celebration Sheila Hobein, Paul Green, Janna Haack, Rachel Schofield, and Dan and Julie at Kuhrts at 6:00 PM Reid. June 7, 14, 21, & 28th — Julie Henningsen had a vision for a dinner to honor our volunteers who Thursdays, Sonshine Ladies served in our children and youth ministries this past year. Julie and Pastor Bible Study in the conference Tony pulled together a great team that planned and prepared the evening. room at 1:30 PM led by Val Caldwell. Under Julie’s direction our elders literally served this dinner to our wonderful June 17—Sunday, Happy team of volunteers. Father’s Day to fathers. This is church budget season. All of our ministries are putting together June 20—Wednesday, Young plans for another exciting year of ministry. The elders will review these at Heart (lunch provided) in ministry budgets and then compile them into an all church budget to present the fellowship hall at noon at our annual church meeting in July. Pray for our ministry team leaders, staff followed by a movie in the sanctuary. RSVP at the bulletin and elders. We desire a budget loaded with vision, which stretches our faith, board to the left as you enter but keeps us grounded in good stewardship. the fellowship hall so we know It’s very hard to discontinue any ministry opportunity. Especially one how many to prepare for. begun with great intentions with great people involved. There are good June 24—Sunday, Children’s Vacation Bible School Pre- reasons to keep something going that is doing okay. One of the harder recent Registration begins in the decisions our elders have made was to suspend our Saturday Night service for fellowship hall between the summer. It just didn’t pass the good stewardship of volunteer and staff worship services (9:10 AM and 10:30 AM) Elder Report continued time test, as well as the worship volunteer availability test. Our Saturday Night Service averaged 50-60 attendees for the past year. Maranatha still needs 3 sanctuary services, so we moved to 3 identical services on Sunday AM with the same worship team in all three. Hopefully our church family will find plenty of room to attend either our 8:00 AM, 9:25 AM or 11:00 AM services. So far the 9:25 service is the most full. I want to encourage you to check out the 8:00 AM or 11:00 AM service especially if crowded isn’t your thing. Also, don’t forget our AWAKENING Service in Soul Garage. We have a leadership team for AWAKENING: Andre and Renee Abraham, Luke Neraasen, Cheyenne Clark, Dan and Janette Young, Cody Zurn and Simon Peterson. AWAKENING Worship in Soul Garage is at 10:30 AM. We will continue to evaluate the idea of having alternative services other than Sunday morning. I look forward to working with Pastor Anthony, our new Worship Arts Pastor, as we consider future worship venues on or off site. Our last two original elders are rotating off our board next month. Dale Heinecke and Doug Ripplinger have served faithfully for the past 7 years. Doug has been the only elder chairman our church has ever known. He has set a standard of excellence and spiritual maturity. God used him in tremendous ways in the unique position of elder chairmen. Both Doug and Dale will be missed, but its right to bring on new leadership and perspectives. Please make it a point to thank our elders for their service. Please pray for our 2012 Elder Nominating team: Paul Hodge, Kevin Pinkerton, Dean Valentin, Val Caldwell, Doug Ripplinger, Dale Heinecke, Heather Cox, and Pastor Dan. Sincerely, Pastor Dan Women’s Quilting class Pretty and practical A beautiful handbag was the result of this year’s quilter’s class led by Diann Raymond and Angie Allen. Pictures courtesy of Stacey Wenzel. Maranatha Membership Notification of Proposed Changes To the Constitution and By-Laws of Maranatha Evangelical Free Church of Rice Lake, Wisconsin According to the current Constitution and By-Laws: Article VII: Amendments “This Constitution may be amended or altered by a two-thirds majority vote of the members present at any regular or special business meeting of the church, providing notification of the proposed alteration or amendment has been made to the members at least 30 days prior to such meeting.” Proposed changes recommended by the Board of Elders: Article II: Government Responsibilities Voting on: the annual budget, constitutional changes, building expansion projects, purchasing or selling property, hiring or dismissing pastoral staff* and electing or removing elders. (take out pastoral staff, replace with senior pastor) * note: Last year the membership voted that the pastors and staff, other than senior pastor, be chosen by the elder board. This changes the verbiage to go along with the decision that was made last year. Section 2: Pastors/Elders/Lay Staff Fifth paragraph – Responsibilities – second sentence: The Elders shall elect their own officers to preside over the annual church meetings, appoint an auditing committee, and the appointing of and annual evaluation of Ministry Team Leaders. (take out and the appointing of and, replace with: appoint and conduct an Note: Verbiage change for sentence flow. Article V: Amendments Flow Chart – Christian Education & Discipleship box. Remove: Christian Education and add Connecting. Note: Christian Education is included within the Ministry boxes where applicable. Youth box: Add: College The Amazing Story of Steven Thorpe Steven Thorpe of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England was 17 when the accident occurred in February 2008. His friend was driving the car which struck a wayward horse. Two other cars were also involved in the accident. The horse and his friend Matthew Jones, another passenger in the car, died. Steven barely survived. He was taken to a hospital in Coventry, a few miles from his home, and placed in a chemically induced coma. Surgery was done to reduce swelling in his brain. After a couple of days, the medical staff concluded that his life could not be saved. Four doctors had concluded that Steven was brain dead and suggested that the family should consider organ donations before the life-support was removed. The family requested a second opinion. They enlisted the aid of Dr. Julia Piper, a private practice doctor in nearby Leicester. Dr. Piper in consultation with a neurologist determined that Steven was still alive. He awoke from the coma two weeks later and was discharged from the hospital seven weeks after the accident. According to BBC News, Dr. Piper said, “I had this strong feeling that this wasn't right and then eventually I got someone else to look at him and of course it proved to have been the right thing to have done. One feels this may happen more often. We don't have any figures but I think it's important to always ask and if you're not sure about something to push as hard as you can. As with all human beings, we can sometimes have procedures in place and they sometimes fail. We need to understand why they're failing.” Steven has had four reconstruction facial surgeries and is receiving physiotherapy to restore some functionality to his badly injured left arm.