New Year, New Church?

Has we head into 2012 I want to pause and think about how we will be changing as a church. Already budget restraints are making changes in the staff and the possibility looms for more changes still to come. This means tasks will either be dropped or others will have to pick up the ball. Some things may go away that should go away. Perhaps things we hold dear will end up going away also.

However, on a positive note the Strategic Planning Implementation Team (SPIT) is looking at how we need to be the church as we move forward. We realize that the world has changed and we have not changed with the times. I am not talking about worship style. I am talking about being a church.

It is time we got excited about being Holy Cross again. When was the last time you were excited about inviting someone to participate in the life of Holy Cross. That is our goal. As we all learn to connect with our neighbors and friends we need to feel the excitement of a charged up Holy Cross. It is easier to invited others to participate if we are excited about what we are doing. It is time to stop doing church and time to be the church in the world.

I am most excited about the Serve aspect of the new plan. I love service. It gives us a sense of purpose. The initial talks in the serve sector are exciting and are something that we can get excited about.

The next team meeting for SPIT is scheduled for January 12th. 7:00pm. All are welcome to join us as we move forward with the future of Holy Cross.

Love God. Love Others. Serve the World.

Dan Johnson

Love God. Love Others. Serve the World.

We have a simple mission at Holy Cross. After much study and discussion we came up with our mission being the Great Commandment. We have distilled it down even further and have a Simple easy to remember expression of our mission as a church.

Love God. Love Others. Serve the World.

Simple easy to remember. Hard to live out on a regular basis.

So the question is how do we do this? We are working on it. But we have a map to help guide us.

Connect Welcome Grow Serve

As we move forward you will see this words used more and more in our life as a church.

The Strategic Planning Implementation Team (SPIT) is working hard to help define what does this mean for Holy Cross. We invite you to join us as we move into the new year. Please See Pastor Jim or Dan Johnson if you are interested in being part of this exciting stage in the life of Holy Cross.

In the Peace and Love of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Dan Johnson

We want to grow but......

It has been a very crazy summer. Two mission trips, a family wedding, VBS and a Youth Ministry retreat have help the summer fly by. I am in the process of getting ready for the fall kickoff with Rally Day this Sunday. All through the summer I have been reading and praying about a wide range of things. One of which is the health of Holy Cross.

Being a leader on the Strategic Planning Implementation Team (SPIT) I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to we make Holy Cross become what we should be? Not what Dan thinks it should be. Not what Pastor Jim wants it to be. But, what God has always wanted a church to be. We are in mission. Always! Not just when the youth load up the vans. We should always be in the mission for Christ. The Great Commission tells us to take the word of Christ out to the world. We need to start local but we need to move our influence outward. Are we doing that? Or are we waiting for others to come to us? Are we really ready to accept new people? Or do we want new members as long as they look and more importantly act like us? Do we want new members that will worship like us? Or are we willing to change to make the message of God understandable for them?

We Lutherans tend to not like change. If we want to change the setting of the Early service we have to announce it ahead of time and practice it or we will get complaints. We will really be berated if we try to make other changes to the worship service. I need permission to show videos of the youth at early service. This is not how to get the message out to the Millions of people that do not go to church. The book of Acts, chapter 15, tells of a crisis in the Early Church in that a sect of the Jewish Christians wanted the gentiles to conform to the laws of Moses and be circumcised in order to be more like them. Thankfully Peter and Paul realized that the Gospel is more open then that belief. The Gospel has and must be translated into a language of the local context. Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth tells us that he became like his audience in order to win them to Christ. Should we do Less?

We speak of the need to reach out to younger people but again we want them to come and be like us. Are we willing to change how church is done so we can be the church? So that we can reach the unchurched? But please understand that nothing we do inside the walls of Holy Cross matter if we are not willing to take Christ outside the walls. Until we are willing to share the Good News of Christ with our neighbors, nothing else matters. The days of build it and they will come are gone. They are not coming. They need to see excitement from us members and see us SHINING with the life of Christ and they will wonder what we got. Then we can build the relationships that will allow us to spread the Good News of Christ.

In the Exciting Peace of Christ!!!

Dan Johnson

Mission Trips

In three weeks 19 people representing God and Holy Cross will be loading the vans and heading out into the mission field once again. We will spend a week sleeping on the floor and showering in a different building. We will not know what to expect until we face it. We will eat "camp" food. Share the place with 53 other youth and adults from across the nation and even a group from Canada. We will be spreading the love of Christ wherever we go. Each morning we will have a time of devotions and each night we will worship. The day will end with sharing between the group.

Our days will be filled helping at local service agencies. One that my wife is hoping that we will serve at teaches life skills to mentally challenged youth through dance music and art. Another option is a senior citizens center and a third is a low income day care center.

It is very hard to go on a trip like this and not be moved by something you see along the way. It may be the smile of a child or a conversation with a friend. The adults that go on a trip like this are as likely to be moved as the youth. This is one of the reasons I would love to someday lead a group of adults on a mission trip.

We will have a sending ceremony at the worship services on July 3rd. Please keep us in mind as we prepare for this exciting adventure.

Dan Johnson

Youth Ministry

On a personal note. Back in March I wrote that I have a goal of losing weight prior to the trip. I set the goal at being 240lbs by the time we leave. I am quite happy to stay that with my new lifestyle of not eating meat I have lost almost all the weight. With 3 weeks to go i am less than a pound away. I want to thank Holy Cross for their support and for the veggie burgers at the church picnic.

WOW

Youth Sunday has come and went. It was a good day all the way around. Andrew's sermon was touching and made people tear up. Somehow as much as I enjoy the results of Youth Sunday I also dislike youth Sunday. Mostly because we say goodbye to our Seniors at the same time. I will miss Andrew and Zack much like I miss Nick, Laura and Travis from last year. Now I will continue to see them during the future years. And Andrew will be joining us during our trek to Toronto. This is my 12th youth Sunday since I started working with youth groups. Each one is special in its own way. And each year I say goodbye to a wonderful group of kids. What makes it easier for me is to know that we have planted seeds for Christ. I have enjoyed seeing what these kids become in the future. I have 2 in seminary, 2 in social work, and many others leading lives from Christ. I am blessed that Christ Jesus has chosen me to be a small part of the lives of these wonderful people. Please understand that we are all given the opportunity to be Christ to people everyday.

In the Peace of Christ.

Dan Johnson

Director of Youth Ministry

Health

This past weekend we held the Bridge Builders workshop. This is the start of a process design to help the health of Holy Cross Lutheran Church as we learn that in group setting the interpersonal relationships determine the health of a congregation. It is not what has happened that is important but it is how we handle the issue that determines the health of the church. Are we an anxious church? As we learned an anxious church talks about people and problems and not to the person where we can best effect the problem. Do we talk about someone rather then talking to someone? We learned that many issues can be resolved, at least to an extent, if we talk to the person we have the issue with.

I left the meeting on Saturday hopeful for the future of Holy Cross. The process is not over. In fact it really has just begun. We will continue with random interviews at the end of the month. After that the consultants will report back to us their observations. At that time it is up to us to do something with the results. I think we have taken a large step forward to move Holy Cross into a healthy future.

On a personal note. My new improved healthy lifestyle is going well. I have gone almost 2 weeks without meat in a meal and the only meat I have eaten was a meatball made by my son in school. I had to try it. It was good. I have more energy then I had while digesting the many meat meals I was eating. I am down a total of 10 lbs and I am well on the way to my goal of being under 240 pounds by the time we load the vans for the trip to Toronto. I did learn that I need to listen to my body still. Eating healthy does not mean you can eat has much as you want. To many calories are still to many calories.

Stay with it Holy Cross and we focus on health and healing during this season of lent I hope and pray that you will get up and move a little more and eat a little less and no more gossip.

In the Love of Christ.

Dan Johnson

Director of Youth Ministry.

Food

We are one week into our lent series. Last night the food was good and the lesson wonderful. If you did not join us please make plans to join us next Wednesday. The main dish will be Baked Chicken. We will continue our video series.

It is funny to me how many of our gatherings involve food. Each Wednesday we feed the kids at confirmation and on Sunday Nights the high school youth have Dinner and? as part of our lessons. For lent we are providing dinner each week. If we have a meeting on a Sunday of course we will have lunch.

No wonder weight is an issue in America.

I am on week 2 of my plan to be down to 240 pounds by the Mission Trip. I am doing this mostly for health reasons but I am also doing this in part for faith reasons. If my body is a temple I do need to care for it like I would an actual temple. So far I am down 5 pounds. i knew the first week would be easy. It was even easier since we have the juicers coming in on a regular basis. Additionally we have many discussions around the church about eating and eating healthy. We even discuss having you join us in changing our eating habits. Perhaps a Meatless Monday? I have gone over a week and have only had 2 meals with meat.

I cannot become healthy if I am not inviting Christ to help me. All diet plans in the past have not worked because I tried to do it on my own. This time I I have invited God to be my partner.

The ELCA has a wholeness wheel. We need to be whole to be healthy. Mind, Body and Spirit.

In the Love of Christ Jesus.

Dan Johnson

Youth Ministry

Is your body a Temple??

I am excited. Kevin (our Director of Music) is back with us as he continues his treatment of his Brain cancer. As you may know Kevin is no longer using chemicals to fight the battle. He is using diet. While I am extremely happy that Kevin is back his return has caused many of us to look at our eating habits. I can not say that my results have been good. Three years ago I was told by my Doctor that I need to reduce my sugar intake. I needed to reduce my weight and I needed to reduce my blood count numbers. Results? Not good.

At first I was motivated to reduce my sugar intake. I did well. I cut out many sources of sugar. I lost weight and my blood work improved. But over time I reverted to bad habits and my counts are back up along with my weight.

Lately I have been feeling God working on me for my eating habits. Along with my overall health. In addition to Kevin's radical change of eating habits I have had many other messages from God about what I put into my body. My son Nick has chosen to become a semi vegetarian eating no beef or pork. (I know this has not been easy for him.) Another message came from the Internet. I download a podcast of a church out of New York. They are doing a sermon series called Bod for God. They discuss the biblical issues in taking care of ourselves. And they remind us that for a change to work we need to invite Christ into the change. Additionally we have 2 youth in the high school program who are vegetarians. When preparing for our Sunday night gathering we typically have a meal. Because of their choice of eating habits I do find myself looking for ways to honor them with the food selections. Our Lenten journey is a journey to Jerusalem. We have added an emphasis on walking. And lastly Kevin had sent me a DVD called "Eating". I watched this DVD last night. And while I was not thrilled with all of the video, ( I am tried of hearing about Global warming everywhere) it did make me think about the Standard American Diet. I recommend that you watch this video if you get a chance. Feel free to borrow it from me if you want.

Paul tells us in his 1st letter to the church at Corinth "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body."

If we took care of our Church building they way most of us take care of our bodies what message would we be sending the world? I would have to say it would not be good. We are not at our best for God if we are not at our best. We talk at Holy Cross about becoming a church of excellence. In order to do that we need to be taking care of ourselves better then we have been. We have been created for a greater work in God. We need to prepare for the work the Lord has put before us.

I have a goal. I hope that you all will hold me to it. Today is March 8Th. On Friday July 8Th the high school ministry will be loading vans and heading into the mission field. I currently weight 260 pounds. I want to be 240 pounds by the time we load the vans. Please join me in this walk. The road is much easier if shared. Jackie has joined me will you?

Let's keep moving and keep the conversation going. "We can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" Put your faith in Christ.

7 times 70

I listen to Joy Fm on a regular basis. One of the bumpers that they play between songs is of a guy that likes a song called 7 times 70. He looked it up in the Bible and was surprised to find it there. Of course he is talking about the answer that Jesus gave when he was asked how many times the person should forgive someone. That got me to thinking about Holy Cross. With all the issues that we are facing do we have that spirit in us?

In so many places the Bible tells us that we need to forgive others. In fact it states that if we do not forgive others how can our Father forgive us?

The funny thing about forgiveness is that it is actually more healing to the person who forgives others. Carrying grudges around hurts you. It is like a poison to your soul. It feeds a negative feeling inside of you. It can cloud your perception of life. It can actually make you sick. Studies have shown that unhappy people tend to get sicker more often then happy people. So for your own sake forgive those that have hurt you.

Forgive Forget and move forward.

In the Peace of the Lord Jesus the Christ.

Dan Johnson

Reflect your faith

Years ago while I was working at my previous church, one of the parents told me that before their kids leave the house they reminded them to reflect their faith. I like the idea of reflecting our faith.

Does the life you live reflect the faith you profess? Or do you profess to have a faith but your life does not show it? To often our Monday through Saturday lives are not what we talk about on Sunday. Do your neighbors know you are a Christian? Because you say so? Or is it because of your actions? Do your words life others up? Or do you bring people down? Do you ignore people in need? Or do you lend a hand?

Each day we are given the opportunity to show we are Christians. Has the song I learned in my youth says: "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love." Do you love your neighbor?

Take time today and every day to let your actions to reflect your faith.

In the Peace of Christ.

Dan Johnson