The HeartBeat

A Message from Pastor Jeff

Then the Lord Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and cure every disease and every sickness. (Matt. 10:1)

In the ninth chapter of Matthew, Jesus travels to Capernaum where he teaches the people and heals the sick. Leaders of the synagogue challenge him, desperate mothers seek healing children, and a crowd begins to gather around him. He travels to city after city and finds in these places people hungry for a word of grace and the power of healing. Matthew records, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” (Matt. 36-37) Matthew shares the names of the disciples: Simon, also known as Peter, his brother Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the Tax Collector, James, Thaddaeus, Simon the Caananean, and Judas. One interpretation of Jesus’ appointment of the disciples is that the ministry had grown beyond what Jesus was able to do by himself. Another interesting approach might be drawn from stories about the end of Jesus’ ministry. In his final appearance to the disciples he gifts them with the Holy Spirit, leaves the promise of the Paraclete, and breathes peace on them. With those actions he equips them for the ministry to which he appoints them in Matthew 10. The ministry has grown in scope and breadth, so he appoints help and gives the tools to minister as he has called them to minister. By appointing and equipping the disciples Jesus not only multiplies the ministry by twelve, he plants the seed of ministry in the very life of the church so that every person multiplies God’s gifts again and again. Our call as the body of Christ is certainly wrapped up in feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and bringing light to darkness. But imagine for a moment if another part of our ministry is the intentional equipping of others to do ministry. Each is also charged with training and equipping others. (Go therefore....). I think Jesus is on to something here. Our role in the church is certainly to minister to the needs of the world, but our ministry also calls forth the gifts of service in others that the whole world might know Christ’s love.

At preschool chapel on Wednesday, I worked with the children on learning the names of the twelve disciples. It was great fun as we wrestled with the names of Thaddaeus and Bartholomew. When we finally got all twelve names down, I asked them to name the REST of the disciples. They had no idea who I was talking about. We rubbed our hands together and said the name of the person sitting next to us—and Christ breathed peace on us.

Pastor Jeff Lilley

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June 2007 Church Council meeting highlights

Here are the highlights of the June 19 Church Council meeting:

• Stewardship Committee—Co-chairs Jeanne Castello and Pam Buckley attended the meeting to discuss fundraising efforts. They would like to have all elements of the stewardship campaign done before the holidays.
• Congregational meetings—The Council voted to have the first part of the congregational annual meeting on Nov. 18, 2007 and the second half on Jan. 27, 2008.
• Offerings—May 2007 member and plate were $17,318.25.
• Treasurer’s report—The year-to-date budget (January through May) shows a deficit of $15,771. Expenses are running 6% lower than budgeted for the year.
• Personnel Committee—Peggy Brandt, Cheryl Crozier Garcia, and Jimmy Castro met and started an important process to put together personnel guidelines, job descriptions, and other critical elements. The Council voted to move this group from task force to committee status.

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Treasurer’s Report

Roy Helms

Our support to LCH improved slightly in May. We are now at 80% of our budget for the year to date. Thank you!

Budget, Year to Date: $101,635.40

Offerings, Year to Date: $81,121.66

We have spent $7,376.38 less than budget for this period. Taking into account income from all sources and expenses to date, we are in a deficit position of $8,018.92 at the end of May.

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Summer Sundays Intergenerational Activities

For most of the year during learning ministry hour the adults go to the adult classes or to choir rehearsal while the children attend Sunday School. During the summer when some of these activities are on hiatus, we have the opportunity to try some new activities in a fun atmosphere open to all age groups. Some members of the congregation have offered to share their skills and talents by leading an activity. We began with Crescent and Sophie C. teaching two hula numbers, the traditional chant “O Kalalau” using the kala’au, and the modern song “Spread a Little Aloha.” The schedule for July and August is listed below. We hope to see you shortly after the service in Isenberg Hall on these Sundays.

• July 1: Liturgical Signing with Stephanie Miller—Learn the signs for “Lamb of God”
• July 22: Needlecraft with Linda Miller and “In-Stitches” Members—Make a yarn lei or a needlepoint bookmark.
• Aug. 5: Art with Randy Castello—Try wet on wet watercolor painting.

SUMMER SUNDAYS: Hula with Crescent and Sophie C.

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Summertime and the Stitching Is Easy

In Stitches will continue meeting through the summer to work on church projects and our own crafts. We meet in the Board Room the second and the fourth Saturdays of each month from 9:00 to 11:00 am. The summer dates are July 14 and 28 and August 11 and 25. Come join us for fellowship and fun!

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2007 Synod Assembly Report and a Mahalo and Aloha

Jacob Burkman

It is with a double purpose that I write this. First of all, as the male voting delegate to the 2007 assembly of the Pacifica Synod of the ELCA, I write this as a report of that assembly. Second, I write it as a fond farewell: Mahalo and aloha for the years that we have been able to share in ministry at LCH.

I will begin with the official business of the Synod assembly first. I thank the congregation and council for the opportunity to serve LCH in this fashion at the 20th assembly of the Pacifica Synod of the ELCA in Waikiki on May 2–5, and regret that I am unable to present this in person. The theme for this assembly was Ho‘omana‘o Ho‘ola (Remembering and Renewing). The overviews of the assembly are on the Pacifica Synod’s website, so I will not spend time rehashing these. The assembly opened Wednesday afternoon with pupus and entertainment. This was followed by the opening worship service at St. Augustine Catholic Church. This service featured the LCH choir. As I was leaving the service, one of the individuals leaving next to me remarked that this was one of the finest worship services ever at a Synod assembly. This was no doubt due to the wonderful music provided by the LCH choir. It is truly a gift for which LCH is to be thankful.

Thursday was perhaps one of the most touching and informative days at the assembly, once we got finished with some routine business (I’ll discuss some of the resolutions later). The keynote address was given by a group from the United Church of Christ dealing with the history of Hawai‘i. The UCC’s forefather was the Congregationalist Church. It is this denomination that did much of the early missionary work in Hawai‘i. It was their descendants who were instrumental in the overthrow of the monarchy. It was a very moving presentation. Thursday’s business also dealt with having special guests to whom Bishop Finck gave new ELWs. The afternoon was spent on excursions. I went on the Lyon Arboretum and LCH excursion, so I am unable to comment on the others. I would like to also personally thank Irmgard Hörmann and Kathy Crosier for giving their time and talents in sharing the LCH story, which was also very interesting—information that I did not know. Also, thank you to all the other members who were there to make the event work very smoothly.

Friday at the assembly consisted of a morning of business and a keynote address by Professor Martha Stortz of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. The early afternoon was filled with various workshops. I went to the Lutheran Worship workshop. For those of you who went to the ELW introduction at Calvary by the Sea in January, it was essentially a repeat of that. For those of you who didn’t, the workshop (either one) basically did a look through of the ELW (our new cranberry hymnal) and explored the various services presented in the beginning of the hymnal. We also sang hymns that were appropriate to the various parts of the service. There was an explanation of the various parts of the service and biblical citations. Following the workshop, we had a slight break before heading out to Ko‘olina for the lu‘au. Entertainment following dinner was some hula dancing. The hula was very well performed by a group of children.

Saturday concluded the assembly with some more business (some of the most heated) and a more contemporary closing worship service.

Much of the business of the assembly went off almost unanimously with only a few delegates voting negative (and for the most part I think this was because they simply felt like being contrary). There was an increase in the baseline salary for rostered leaders by 3% as well as an increase in the point value multiplier from $750 to $775. The assembly adopted the Cherish our Children Initiative which called for the establishment of a ministry team that would report to the bishop synod council and would encourage “Cherish Prayers,” education, raising awareness, relationship-building and action among its congregation. The synod would attempt to involve 50% of the congregations in this by 2012. After an attempt to amend (the individual made the amendment thinking that as worded it was not clear, but it was decided that the proposed amendment would severely weaken the resolution), the Israel-Palestine Memorial to the Church-wide assembly passed. It called for encouragement for the U.S. government to provide leadership and the church to provide support for a just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Further, the resolution urged the church (its members and agencies) to recommit and provide sufficient financial support for the church-wide strategy for engagement in Israel and Palestine, which includes awareness building, accompaniment with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and the Lutheran World Federation, and advocacy. It was noted that as far as aid, there is not a requirement that the individual receiving the aid be Lutheran or even Christian. The resolution “Healthy and Growing Congregation” called for the Synod to develop and make available coaches for all of the congregations to revitalize their ministries, and stated that all congregations will be encouraged to make use of this and the Natural Church Development Process. An amended (substituted) version of Mission Support passed. It called for a copy of a resolution passed in 1991 to be sent to all congregations by June 1, 2007; pastors and lay leaders to meet during June/July to share information about mission support for previous years and plans for future years; send a report to the Vice President of the synod council; and the synod council to establish a task force to study these reports. A resolution pertaining to Sexuality Study: “Free in Christ” and one concerning having future assemblies in Hawaii failed from lack of time to make it to the floor and hence will be sent to the Synod Council for ratification.

The majority of the business discussion (and by far the most heated) dealt with the topic of immigration reform. The first resolution declared solidarity with immigrants, called for just and humane policies in dealing with immigration, called on civil authorities to “protect all immigrants from abuse, exploitation and violence,” and called on the U.S. government to encourage complementary actions by foreign governments. There was an amendment proposing that the U.S. government force the Mexican government to detail how it uses U.S. foreign aid. This amendment did not pass. After a great deal of heated and passionate debate on both sides (we being a nation of immigrants and the struggles our ancestors had in establishing life here, and spending of our money on illegal immigrants), this resolution was referred to Immigration/Housing Ministry team of the synod. As a result of the assembly failing to take action, we did not pass on a memorial to the national convention. This, really, is not that surprising considering a large part of the Pacifica Synod is in southern California, which clearly is on the front of dealing with immigration, especially from Mexico and Latin America. Another resolution, Mayday Call of Immigrants, which was essentially the same as the above, failed to reach the floor for discussion—it was submitted late and needed a 2/3 vote to be brought before the assembly; it was nearing the scheduled end of the business part of the assembly and failed to achieve the necessary 2/3 vote. Another resolution calling for a return of the assembly to Hawai‘i at some time in the relatively near future also failed to come to the floor.

This report is respectfully submitted by
Jacob Burkman
2007 Lutheran Church of Honolulu Male Voting Member.

The other purpose of this writing is for me to again say farewell to the members and friends of LCH who have been my Hawai‘i ohana for the last three years. My most heartfelt mahalo for everything, especially the very welcoming nature of the people at LCH. I will greatly miss you. I wish to thank you for the wonderful sendoff on Sunday, May 20. It means a great deal to me to know that I have your support in my upcoming seminary life (I will inform the church office of updated contact information at Luther Seminary once I know it). May the Lord continue to bless you.

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LCH contingent in the Gay Pride Parade

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What’s New on the LCH Website?

Bill Potter, webmaster

Our LCH website has incorporated three new kinds of technology in the last month. Two of them will be apparent to visitors exploring our “Sermons” and “Congregational Life” sections, but the other is operating below the surface.

Last month, I reported that we are now posting audio files of our sermons on the website. Thanks to the dedication of Bill Fay, who has been converting the recordings made through our sound system to digital files that can be posted on the Internet, we usually get those up by late Sunday afternoon. Bill has even converted a few of the old cassette tapes to audio files, so we have sermons back to Easter Sunday morning, April 8 (except for April 29 and May 6 when there were technical problems).

In mid June, we started to make sermons available in the form of podcasts that anyone can subscribe to. This way, the audio files are regularly downloaded to your computer so you can listen to them on the computer or with your iPod or other mp3 player. We have links on the sermon pages that allow subscription via iTunes or using other RSS (Really Simple Syndication) software. You can also go directly to the iTunes Store and search for us in the “Religion & Spirituality” section of the podcast directory. If lots of us subscribe via iTunes or tell our friends, we can rise up higher in their popularity index.

The second new technology is our first video posting. During the Synod Assembly in May, we hosted visitors on the LCH campus, and Irmgard Hörmann spoke about the beginnings of Lutheranism in Hawai‘i. Pastor Jeff made a video of her presentation and saved it as a QuickTime movie that could be saved to our website. To watch the video, go to the “Congregational Life” section and look for the short story about Irmgard’s talk. There you’ll find a link taking you to the video. If you’re on a Windows machine, you’ll need to have QuickTime installed, and the file is big, so I don’t recommend viewing it if you are on a dial-up connection.

Finally, following up on a suggestion from Mary Fastenau, we have added some files to our website that you can’t see but which will help various search engines navigate our site and make it easier to index all the information we have. The hidden file is called a “sitemap,” and it shows how all the different pages on our website are arranged. We hope that better indexing in the search engines will bring more people to our site and help spread the good news of God’s love that we proclaim at LCH. I have also added a link from our “Home” page to a version of the sitemap for human visitors so you can see how the 370 pages on our website fit together.

Finally, a couple of members have emailed me in the last month and pointed out errors on the website. One started out by writing, “I hate to sound like I’m criticizing, but....” I understand that feeling, so I want to say again that I am always very happy when people tell me about misspelled words, grammar mistakes, factual errors, and broken links. I know I make mistakes, and I also know that our website is the public face of LCH. One of our norms at LCH is that we do things well, so we don’t want mistakes on the website. If you find an error, please use the email link at the bottom of that page to tell me about it (with the title of the page and a description of the error), and it will be corrected right away.

Members assembled to shoot a new photo for the LCH website

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Ohana news

Hello from HOT Mississippi.

I hope you will enjoy Hawaii for a long-long time. I wish I were back there and at LCH. I enjoyed my years there, and the volunteering my twin Sis Ruth Mielke and I did. It was so rewarding. I still enjoy the Heart Beat—we worked on that for many years.

Now I’m 91—going on 92. I still volunteer at our hospital. I thank the Lord every day for giving me good health.

I still keep in touch with some of our many friends there at LCH.

May God bless you all.

Sincerely,
Gertrude Janett

(Webmaster’s Note: Ms. Janett’s mailing address is available from the Church Office.)

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IHS Fundraiser—used ink cartridges and old cell phones

Drop your used printer ink cartridges/toners and old cell phones (handsets and batteries only) at the LCH Administrator’s office or in a drop box located at the church. Two companies will turn the cartridges and cell phones into CASH. The minimum we can send in is 50 cartridges and 35 cell phones. This is an ongoing fundraiser to support the Institute for Human Services Meal that LCH provides on the third Friday of each month for the homeless.

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The Angel Network needs food items, plastic bags, and your assistance

The Angel Network, hosted at Calvary by the Sea, is the Hukilau’s food bank for feeding the homeless and destitute. Please consider including them in your regular grocery shopping. Bring canned meat items and other food and toiletry items to church on Sunday; also plastic bags to bag the food items have been requested.

If you would like to volunteer your services on Thursdays and or Fridays, the Angel Network needs assistance in stocking shelves and filling grocery bags. Call Nikki Silverstein at 358-6954.

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Mahalo to...

• Cheryl Crozier Garcia for her $400 donation to IHS in celebration of Jaime’s birthday.
• Bill Fay for overseeing the electrical renovations of the Isenberg Hall and Church office wings.
• Brian Weis for the donation of 96 folding chairs. We have been making great use of them during our Fellowship functions.

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Keep in Your Prayers...

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Garden (work) Party

After the service on Sunday, July 8, there will be a Garden (work) Party. Come and help us beautify our grounds. Free lunch and fellowship provided. For more information, contact Carol Langner through the Church Office (941-2566)..

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Lunch Bunch

Come and join the Lunch Bunch at Subway Manoa on Sunday, July 8, after the 9:15 am service. See you there!

Future Lunch Bunch...August 12. For more information, contact through the Church Office (941-2566).

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Game Night

It’s a potluck at 6:30 pm at Stephanie Miller’s. Bring a game!

The Game Night schedule—fourth Saturdays of every month...July 28, August 25. For directions/information, contact Step through the Church Office (941-2566).

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Scarves for LC/NA

The In Stitches group has a project for you. Lutherans Concerned/North America has requested assistance in knitting or crocheting rainbow-colored scarves for them to wear at the Churchwide Assembly in Chicago. For instructions, contact the church office.

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July Birthdays

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Hans-Ulrich Erbsloh, organ builder from German, busy at work refurbishing the Beckerath organ in the Nave during the whole month of June.

Believe it or not, there are approximately 1,604 pipes in the organ.

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Heart Beat Deadline

Next Heart Beat Deadline is Tuesday, July 17!

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Calendar: July 2007

Sunday, July 1

9:15 AM Holy Communion

10:30 AM “Summer Sundays”

8:30 PM Pre-Compline Discussion

9:00 PM Compline

Monday, July 2

6:00 PM Mutual Ministry/Transition Team Meeting

Wednesday, July 4—Independence Day—Office Closed

Thursday, July 5

10:00 AM Preschool Chapel

Sunday, July 8—Youth Service Project

9:15 AM Holy Communion

10:30 AM “Summer Sundays”

10:30 AM Garden (work) Party

11:30 PM Lunch Bunch—Wahoo’s Fish Taco (Ward)

8:30 PM Pre-Compline Discussion

9:00 PM Compline

Tuesday, July 10

6:30 PM Worship & Music

Wednesday, July 11

10:00 AM Preschool Chapel

12:30 PM Finance Committee

Saturday, July 14

9:00 AM In Stitches

Sunday, July 15

9:15 AM Holy Communion

10:30 AM “Summer Sundays”

8:30 PM Pre-Compline Discussion

9:00 PM Compline

Tuesday, July 17

9:00 AM Heart Beat Deadline

6:00 PM Executive Committee

6:30 PM Council Meeting

Wednesday, July 18

10:00 AM Preschool Chapel

Friday, July 20

1:30 PM Prepare IHS Meals

5:30 PM Serve IHS Meals

Sunday, July 22

9:15 AM Holy Communion

10:30 AM “Summer Sundays”

8:30 PM Pre-Compline Discussion

9:00 PM Compline

Wednesday, July 25

9:00 AM Heart Beat Mailing

10:00 AM Preschool Chapel

Saturday, July 28

9:00 AM In Stitches

6:30 PM Game Night

Sunday, July 29

9:15 AM Holy Communion

10:30 AM “Summer Sundays”

8:30 PM Pre-Compline Discussion

9:00 PM Compline

Monday, July 30

7:30 PM English Anthems and Consort Music for Voices and Viols

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