Christ Our Redeemer
14722 Morris Ave Allen Park, Michigan 48101
(313) 429-3085
Rev. Joel M. Holls, Pastor
christourredeemerlutheran.com
Connections
January 14, 2024
Welcome to Christ Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Please take a moment to sign our guest book before leaving today.
Serving Today as
Elder: Neil Ikonen
Next Sunday
Elder: Vince Tobias
Our Mission
The Lord has planted us here to spread the Gospel in Allen Park and elsewhere. He gave us gifts
and talents to use as we carry out our responsibilities of sharing the life giving and lifesaving Word
and Sacraments. To this end, we commit our time, talents, and treasures in service to our Savior.
Weekly Serving Schedule
Date
Elder
Greeter
Reader
January 14
Neil Ikonen
Sarah Lange
Katee Harwood
January 21
Vince Tobias
Katee Harwood
Vince Tobias
January 28
Larry Harwood
Dawn & Terry R.
Diane McDowell
February 4
Neil Ikonen
Sarah Lange
Sue Holls
February 11
Vince Tobias
Katee Harwood
Vince Tobias
February 18
Larry Harwood
Dawn & Terry R.
Sarah Lange
Church Cleaning
Our Church Cleaning continues every other week. Please consider coming to help for just an hour of your time.
Wednesday, January 24
6:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 7
6:00 p.m.
We have exceeded our Pledge Goal for 2023! Thank you for the extra
donations of $3071.75. Prayerfully consider adding a percentage to your
offerings in the new year to be able to serve our Lord at Christ Our Redeemer.
There’s a new signup sheet for Fellowship Treats. Please take your turn
to bring goodies for fellowship and Bible Class time!
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Bible Study
Each week following the service our Pastor provides a Bible study for our members. During the Holidays many of us had a lot of commitments that prevented us from staying for Bible Study. Now that the holidays are over it is a proper time to decide whether there is enough interest and commitment in Sunday Morning Bible study to continue. If you attend church on Sunday, are you interested in Bible study following? It is obvious that Pastor does not mind spending his time preparing for these Sunday morning studies, but are we doing our Lord and him a disservice when we have just 2 or 3 people stay to participate? Please use the included survey to take a second to prayerfully consider yes or no and place it in the offering plate as you leave. This will help to decide on whether Sunday Morning Bible Study continues. If we decide that we do not want to continue this, it will also relieve the pressure of worrying about goodies each week. We will post the results in the connections in by the end of January.
Membership Revival
We all know that when the pandemic started, the normal course of life was altered. That change has been acutely noticed in our church. Everyone has struggled to bounce back to pre-pandemic life. Because we live in a sinful world, we are not exempt from the results of the fall from grace. But because we confess that we stand strong on God’s word, we need to be reminded that our focus must always be on the promises found there. We are strong, but to remain strong we must continue to build on the Rock. Scripture says in Matthew 7:24-27 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
We have His promise that He is always with us. We need to continue to build on the rock and not get caught in the sand. Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. In this new year that God has given us, each one of us are encouraged to work toward continuing the work of building on the Rock. How are we as God’s chosen children going to share His word to others this year? Our mission as God’s children has always been to make disciples and bring others to Christ. How can you participate in that mission here in God’s house? We need everyone to work together to bring ideas and plans to continue building on the Rock here at Christ Our Redeemer.
Website Committee
If you are a part of the website committee, please take some time to review the parts of the website that you have agreed to work on. With the new year upon us, we would like to make a goal of getting our website fully operational and sharing God’s work here at Christ Our Redeemer.
But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in Your salvation. I will sing the LORD’s praise, for He has been good to me. Psalm 13:5-6 - NIV
Kroger Community Rewards
This program makes fundraising easy by donating to local organizations based on the shopping you do every day. Once you link your Card to an organization, all you have to do is shop at Kroger and swipe your Shopper’s Card. Here’s how it works:
1) Create a digital account: A digital account is needed to participate in Kroger Community
Rewards. If you already have a digital account, simply link your Shopper’s Card to your
account so that all transactions apply toward the organization you choose.
2) Selecting the organization that you wish to support is as simple as updating the Kroger
Community Rewards selection on your digital account.
a). Sign in to your digital account.
b). Search for your organization
c). Enter the name or NPO number of the organization you wish to support
d). Select the appropriate organization from the list and click “Save”.
Your selected organization will also display in the Kroger Community Rewards
section of your account. If you need to review or revisit your organization, you can
always do so under your Account details
Any transactions moving forward using the Shopper’s Card number associated with your digital account will be applied to the program, at no added cost to you. Kroger donates annually to participating organizations based on your percentage of spending.
Jesus Dollars
Have you been checking those one-dollar bills in your pockets? We are again collecting “Lord…” “God…”, Jesus…” and “Christ” dollars for our church. You can tell one of these “Special” dollars by the letter located in the circle to the left of George Washington on the bill. If there is a “L”, “G”, “J”, or “C” or in the circle, we are asking you to drop it into the white church located next to the organ. All the donated Jesus dollars will be designated to organ maintenance.