THE MESSENGER St. John Wood River, Illinois & 2014 Special Events Coming Up August 15: Making dinner for families staying at the Park Ave. Ronald McDonald House. Leave church at 3pm. August 17: Listening Post after worship. August 23: Budget Hearing—all Team Leaders and Members are invited to discuss the budget for next year. 9:30am in Fellowship Hall. August 24: Blessing of the Backpacks during worship. Bring your school backpacks for a special blessing, receive an ID tag and parents receive encouraging cards to slip into the backpacks in the days ahead. 5pm: Youth Group meeting at church. September 14: Rally Day!!! Bible Presentation Sunday for our 5 th and 6 th graders during worship. 2-5pm: Hosting Conference Regions 3, 4 & 5 pre-annual meeting gathering September 18: Salad Luncheon, 11am-2pm September 21: New Members’ Class & Lunch, after worship and coffee fellowship. September 28: Outdoor service with Blessing of the Animals. Bring your leashed or crated pets for our annual blessing service. What’s Inside Prayer list Kids Klips Calendars Birthdays From the Pastor New Members If you are interested in joining St. John UCC as a voting member, you are invited to a class after worship on Sunday, Sept. 28 after the Blessing of the Animals. It will last about 2½ hours and include lunch. Please see Pastor Mike to sign up for the class.
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THE MESSENGER St. John
Wood River, Illinois
& 2014
Special Events Coming Up
August 15: Making dinner for families staying at the Park Ave.
Ronald McDonald House. Leave church at 3pm.
August 17: Listening Post after worship.
August 23: Budget Hearing—all Team Leaders and Members are
invited to discuss the budget for next year. 9:30am in Fellowship
Hall.
August 24: Blessing of the Backpacks during worship. Bring your
school backpacks for a special blessing, receive an ID tag and
parents receive encouraging cards to slip into the backpacks in the
days ahead.
5pm: Youth Group meeting at church.
September 14: Rally Day!!! Bible Presentation Sunday for our 5th
and 6th graders during worship.
2-5pm: Hosting Conference Regions 3, 4 & 5 pre-annual
meeting gathering
September 18: Salad Luncheon, 11am-2pm
September 21: New Members’ Class & Lunch, after worship and
coffee fellowship.
September 28: Outdoor service with Blessing of the Animals.
Bring your leashed or crated pets for our annual blessing service.
What’s
Inside
Prayer list
Kids Klips
Calendars
Birthdays
From the Pastor
New Members
If you are interested
in joining St. John
UCC as a voting
member, you are
invited to a class after
worship on Sunday,
Sept. 28 after the
Blessing of the
Animals. It will last
about 2½ hours and
include lunch.
Please see Pastor
Mike to sign up for
the class.
Eden Seminary Professor Emeritus the Rev.
Dr. Lowell Zuck died quietly in his home in Webster
Groves on July 30. Lowell was the Professor of
Church History and Historical Theology for
generations of ministers, many still
serving in UCC, Methodist and other
churches.
He was my faculty adviser
for my first two years at seminary
until he retired at the end of my
“middler year.” For the past 20
years in his retirement, Dr. Zuck
continued to serve as the archivist for the Evangelical
Church Archives, offering wonderful extravagant
hospitality to countless confirmation class tours of the
archives. He vividly
described life of the early
German settlers, yellow
fever epidemics and the
bold vision and humble
beginnings of the diaconal
ministries that still serve
the needs of so many
people today.
Lowell had a quip
for just about every
movement in church history and current situation you
could name. Given the nature of some points in
church history, some of his quips are not suitable for
publication in a church newsletter.
If any of them sound cynical taken out of
context, they are not. Lowell was one of the most
hope-filled people I have ever known. He was
wonderfully amused by our absurdities in the church
and our own lack of knowledge about all the
arguments the church has had in the past. He yearned
for peace, peace among nations and peace among all
peoples.
Aware of his coming retirement, a few of us
decided to take class notes on the right side of our
paper and jot down his quips on the left side. We
wanted the development office to publish a Daily
Zuckism Calendar for alumni to purchase but they
never did. But for all of you, here is some of the wit
and wisdom of a faithful servant and educator of
Christ’s church. Enjoy.
Carl Schneider was my predecessor in this chair. Only
it wasn’t a chair then, more of a stool.
They are replacing me with 2 associate professors or
guest lecturers. Makes me think I’ve been underpaid.
Fortunately I enjoy shaping the young minds of new
ministers and sending you out to serve the Lord. Only
you second career students aren’t so young. I guess I
should have asked for more money.
Poor Wycliffe, they dug up his bones and burned
them. Of course, they burned Huss while he was still
using his. That’s why we burn you while we have you
here in the seminary. We’re not stupid, we know it’s
more painful that way.
I do apologize. I didn’t have much content for our
time today so I had to preach instead.
I just came from the chapel, where I did not see most
of you. Tell me, though, Hale is teaching you the
difference between preaching about eternity and
exemplifying it, isn’t he?
Andover Newton was organized when Harvard bit the
dust and went Unitarian.
Now this is a wonderful book. It covers church
thought from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey.
How’s that for apostolic succession?
Jonathan Edwards, his sermons were long and
thoughtful and on “justification by faith,” a
combination which can be deadly.
We have declared ourselves a “Peace Church”—and I
think we mean it, although it is very vague what it
means exactly.
I try to live a peaceful life. The church seems to
interfere with that more than anything else.
If the missionaries couldn’t convert them and open up
the trade routes, we sent in the Navy.
We all know our culture is not dedicated to poverty.
As clergy we may be entering it but we’re not
dedicated to it.
The Orthodox Church has come into the Protestant
ecumenical movement. They’re still a bit leery of the
Catholics but they know there is no way they will ever
agree with us theologically so it is probably safe to
have lunch together once-in-a-while.
Powerlessness has a tendency to keep you ethical.
One could say, it is one of the gifts of being exiled or
in prison.
Barth wrote this massive systematic work bringing us
into the new age of theological diarrhea.
Then he wrote a 7 volume history, which is boring on
a bigger scale.
You don’t remember Nestorious and the monophysite
controversy? You took a test on that last semester.
You have to remember it all to get into heaven, you
know.
Virginia was a colony of the most dangerous form of
life: young single males in their twenties. They don’t
know how to take care of themselves so they either die
or kill each other. Or in this case, they imported
women just in the nick of time.
In the sixties and seventies we didn’t burn up the
whole planet. That fact I regard as a major success.
I’m from Pennsylvania, the place of all those
quarrelling sectarian groups, utopian communities and
upstart cults, the California of colonial America.
I would call the “new morality” simply the old
immorality. It’s as if teen-agers have taken over the
moral compass of the nation. Come to think of it, they
didn’t need to take over, we gave it to them. It’s sort
of fun to live in a country where the leaders think with
every part of their body but their head.
In the sixties they said God was dead, even made the
cover of Time. The one thing we learned after all that
is that God, apparently, does not read Time magazine.
Then in the seventies it was the death of
denominationalism. Sociologists always seem to
underestimate the power of momentum—and vested
pension plans—and the Holy Spirit. Hopefully not in
that order.
If a Congregationalist ever tells you they don’t have
and never had a creed, buy them a copy of Walker’s
book and hit them over the head with it. It’s
paperback so it won’t knock them out but it will shut
them up, which in the case of a preacher is just as
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If
you want to be happy, practice compassion.
– The Dalai Lama
Hospitalized or Health Concerns since the last Messenger: Bev Thomas Dr. David Beebe Vickie Roberts
Staying Close to Home/ Chronic Health Concerns Lucille Aubin Eleanor Kohlmiller Freda Frizzell Margaret Rowden Darleen Gowin Betty Wiegand Ed Hamlin Bob Hall
In Nursing Homes John Niehaus, Jerseyville Manor Margaret Hinkle, Hitz Memorial N.H. Brad Bailey, Edwardsville Nursing & Rehab
Serving in the Military Dustin & Ashley Richards, Caleb Roberts, Blake Sabolo, Brandon Sabolo and Brandon Southcombe