From Pastor Dale…

I greet you this month with a “Thank You” a “Change” and a “Word of Encouragement”. So let’s just take them in that order:

First: Thank you to my “Reality Squad” and the many many more of you who helped to make the “Faith in Action” Taking it to the Streets day on Sunday, June 8^th, such a great event! There were 120 plus folks involved in the day who organized, cooked, served, cheered, picked up trash, and just plain were supportive. The day brought great fellowship, an opportunity to meet many more folks in our community, and we picked up nearly 80 bags of trash. Thank you! Lives were touched!

Second: There was some discussion at the June congregational meeting about modifying our worship schedule at least for the summer. This discussion was born out of genuine care for me in trying to attend to all the worship services. I really appreciate the concern! As a result of that discussion, the worship and music team took a recommendation to church council that our worship schedule for July and August would look like this:

Saturday 5:00 p.m.

Sunday 9:00 a.m. Traditional

Sunday 11:00 a.m. Praise

The council unanimously supported and approved this recommendation. This will bring a relief to my schedule in as much as I can be present at all the services and not have to juggle coverage for the ones I couldn’t be present for. So, thanks again for your support of the change. Normally a reduction in the number of worship opportunities brings a decrease in overall attendance. By the grace of God, let’s disprove that statistic for St. Mark’s!

Third: Good news coming from the search committee! They are recommending a candidate for associate pastor position to church council. Yea! I am encouraged by their good work, and the faithful work of the Holy Spirit. Please keep the search committee, church council, the candidate, and the process in your prayers.

Let’s have a great summer together! See you in church!

In Christ,

Pastor Dale

SPECIAL CONGREGATIONAL MEETING

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church will hold a special congregational meeting on Sunday, July 20, 2008, at 10:15 a.m. The purpose of the meeting will be to vote on the hiring of the Associate Pastor and to vote on the approval of the compensation package. The required quorum of 5% of the active membership will be needed to accomplish the voting processes. Please attend this very important meeting in the life of the congregation.

MAY NOISY OFFERING totaled $587.45. This money will go to the ASP Mission Trip. The Noisy Offering for June will go to Young Life.

16^th Annual Tent Weekend

July 11, 12 & 13

Everyone Welcome, Invite Your Friends and Neighbors

Come and join in as we celebrate the 16^th annual Tent Weekend at St. Mark’s. There will be an 8:30 a.m. Service of the Word worship service and then once again Ragtime Rick and his band will lead our Dixieland Service on Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. followed by our Picnic Smorgasbord, and more music under the tent. The Worship service Saturday evening at 5:00 p.m. will be held under the tent followed by a picnic supper in the Family Life Center. The evening will conclude with a concert presented by the Bowling Green Community Band under the tent. Activities are also being planned for the youth on Friday night.

The sign up sheets for food donations and volunteers are located in the gathering area. Your help is greatly appreciated. We also welcome monetary donations. Thank you.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE:

So that our volunteers can take vacation we will not be serving dinners on Wednesday’s throughout the month of August. We will resume the regular schedule starting Wednesday, September 4. All of us from St. Mark’s wish you a wonderful summer and we’ll see you in September.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers. It is wonderful to be able to face surgery and know there are many prayers happening on your behalf. The doctor was pleased with the surgery results and I am now home for recuperation. Praise the Lord! Special thanks to Pastor Dale for his visits. - Harold Oberhaus (5-29-08)

From the Parish Administrator…

This spring has simply flown by. It seems as if I have run from one thing to the next but thanks to your generosity, Cathi and I will be leaving this afternoon for a week of rest and recuperation.

Before I go I must bring you up to date on a couple of things. By now you have seen the window project finished outside with some drywall finish to be completed on the interior. What a wonderful improvement to our facility. Those rooms should be much more comfortable and the energy saving has to be significant. Please don’t be bashful if you know how to hold a paintbrush or a paint roller we can use you to help paint the new wall areas.

The new youth room in the Family Life Center will soon be under way as those materials have arrived. We will be doing some of the work on this project ourselves so keep an eye out for those opportunities as well.

What I really need to share with you is my time with our youth as we traveled to West Virginia. I struggled this year even agreeing to go. Relay for Life was just a couple weeks before, and that is a real drain on me, and we were starting the window projects as well as the daily routine of my position here. You all know how easy it is to find excuses.

I can only say how glad I am that I said yes. It is such a humbling experience to give up a week of time to share with someone less fortunate. A week seems like such a long time but then you realize for these folks it’s a lifetime. The Appalacian culture is very different. It is all about family and not leaving the area. Most folks return or just never leave.

The young family we served was sleeping in the living room kitchen dining room, one not so big room. There was no kitchen table, no bed, only a couch. The trailer was in desperate need of almost everything. We replaced dry wall that had black mold and the entire floor in one room. We sprayed everything with bleach to try and stop the mold. We dug holes under the trailer to pour footers and build pillars to support the existing ones as they were leaning and shifting. All of our team was just great – not afraid to learn and do whatever was asked and a lot was asked.

The father was working long hours, but at $6.00 an hour with no benefits. Mom and the two girls, four and one, were there as we worked. Mom was doing a great job with the girls. They were well behaved, neat and clean. They stole our hearts. They often stole the work crew because they wanted them to play and did. It was great to see the trust they had in us. Do we so trust? It is a part of the experience to get to know the families not just to work for them.

Thank you for allowing me to go and share and learn. Even though we were there to help, this young mother with so little always had a treat for us. Popcorn one day, and on the day we celebrated putting down that first sheet of flooring, we had cake and ice cream. I was truly touched by these gifts. We have so much but often give so little. Her gifts though small were so huge.

Even though I tired, I returned renewed. God just has a way of sending his message to us in a variety of ways. I pray for our West Virginia family and know that in some ways their little may be even more.

God’s Blessings.

The Organ…

After 37 years of almost constant use, parts of our well-loved organ are wearing out. The console (the “brains” of the organ, where the organist sits with the keyboards, pedals and stops) is failing. Stops don’t always come out (or go in) when one expects them to. The control mechanism, which is inside the console, is old and sometimes fails to do what is required of it. Some of the wind chests and wind lines are also deteriorating. When discussion began about what should be done to fix these problems, we also decided to look at the varied roles of the organ and how our current organ was filling those roles. We looked at three main roles: leader of congregational song, accompanist of the choir, and presenter of music of all stylist types.

Leader of congregational song is the role of the organ that is most important to Lutheran worship. Is our current organ filling this role in the best possible way? If any of you have ever had the opportunity to sing hymns while standing in the choir area, you know the answer to that question is no. Based on the way that some of our pipes have been “voiced” (the process by which the individual pipes are made to sound) along with a lack of larger pipes which speak in the same octave in which people sing (too many of our pipes are small and speak much higher than anyone could possibly sing), our organ is forced to play too loudly for the people who sit close to it. Because of these same faults, the sound of the organ does not carry to the back of the sanctuary (the reason why the organ has to play so loud for congregational singing.)

Choral music has always been a very important addition to Lutheran worship, and many times the organ is called upon to lend accompaniment. Does our organ do this in the best possible way? Many times the answer is a resounding yes! There are pieces of music which are very suited to our organ, but there are times where it leaves us musicians wanting more. Most of this wanting is at lower dynamic level. Our organ just doesn’t have many soft sounds of different colors from which to choose.

The third role that the organ is called upon to fulfill is to play a wide variety of solo literature within the worship service. Our current organ does play a relatively small portion of the available literature quite well, but there is a whole other world out there that it just can’t play. Much of this is because of the limited number of sounds available as well as the fact that it only has two keyboards. You say, “Well, most organists only have two hands!” True, but many times there is a required change of sound that is so quick that it is not physically possible to change the sounds so fast. It is however possible to merely shift one’s hand (or hands) to a different keyboard and back again.

In a perfect world, we would have more space to put additional pipes, and we would not have what some call a large financial debt. We would then be able to make all the required repairs, adjustments, and alterations (refinements) that are needed. Enter, T.S. Good Church Organs and Rodgers Digital Organs.

I have to admit that in the start, I was quite adamant that I didn’t want to go the route of a run-of-the-mill digital organ. I investigated a couple all-pipe organ companies as well as a very elite, top-of-the-line, digital company, but they all proved to be too expensive for our purposes and considering our current debt (and we don’t have the space to do much in terms of pipes.) At the request of one of our church members, I decided to contact T.S. Good (Rodgers), and after much conversation with Terry Brassell (the local sales rep. for T.S. Good and Rodgers) and a couple of presentations, we decided the best next step would be for their company to fly me to Portland, Oregon, to the Rodgers’ headquarters. Well, I must say I was VERY impressed! Their factory and design personnel were amazing. I’m absolutely convinced that they could build an organ for us that would meet ALL of our needs. The organ would be able to handle everything from the most traditional worship services and music to the most contemporary trends. Who knows what the future will hold in terms of worship styles? Rodgers’ organs are “upgradeable”, so if worship style trends do change in the next 50 years, the organ would be able to change with them.

While I was in Portland, we went through, step-by-step, what features and sounds would most compliment our current pipes and best support our current worship services and overall music program all while keeping in mind a most responsible use of the yet-to-be-donated money. I was impressed by their willingness to work with a client with such picky demands! Back in Ohio, they will do an overall, thorough inspection of our current organ and put together a proposal for us by the beginning of July. This proposal will then be scrutinized by myself and the organ committee, who will then make a recommendation to the Church Council. Council will then determine if the proposal can be made available to the whole church for a vote.

While I was at the Rodgers’ headquarters, they gave me a CD that demonstrated what is possible with a Rodgers instrument. It is truly impressive! We will have a couple listening sessions following a worship service in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings in the later part of July. You will have the opportunity to hear first hand (albeit, through a CD and with our sound system) what remarkable instruments Rodgers builds. You will also have the opportunity to ask me any questions you might have. More information will follow. Please, stay tuned.

Musically Yours,

Kevin

2008 CHURCH COUNCIL MEMBERS

Cindy Adcock caadock@verizon.net 419-352-8341

Linda Allen theallens@dacor.net 419-354-6450

Duane Carey carey_duane@yahoo.com 419-352-0161

Rob Johnson rlj224@yahoo.com 419-353-7481

Randy LaFond randall_lafond@mhsnr.org 419-352-9882

Amy Lanning alannin@bgsu.edu 419-353-2432

Carol Lenox jonlenox@verizon.net 419-669-1008

Harold Lunde hlunde@cba.bgsu.edu 419-352-3929

Earl McKinney mckinney@dacor.net 419-352-9694

Mark Nelson mnelson6@woh.rr.com 419-352-4804

Mark Schultz mes0985@yahoo.com 419-352-0078

Sandy Sundermeier AFAssundermeier@verizon.net 419-352-3791

Jim Woelke woelkefamily@dacor.net 419-352-4009

Thank you to our volunteers:

Saturday Scripture Reader Coffee Hour Hosts

July 5 Susanna Herman July 6 Gordon & Robin Digby

July 12 Volunteer Sign up in the Gathering Area July 13 Mark & Mary Nelson

July 19 Donna Mertz July 20 Donna Pulschen

July 26 Hobart Johnson July 27 Jerry & Jan Ruffner

Saturday Worship Assistants Welcome Ministry Visitors

July 5 Hobart & Karen Johnson July 6 Rose Ackerman, Tom Baer

July 12 Volunteer Sign up in the Gathering Area July 13 No visits

July 19 Craig & Sharon Traver July 20 Jim & Barb Vollmar, Amy Schroeder

July 26 Gary & Deb Marten July 27 Orrin & Judy Zirbel, Tom Baer

9:00 a.m. Greeters 9:00 Ushers

July 6 Mary DeWitt, Stella & Wyatt July 13 Mark Strausbaugh, Mary Strausbaugh

July 20 Jody & Tricia Germann, Garrett & Gretchen July 20 Henry Ackerman, Larry Lewis,

July 27 Mark & Peggy Hamman Don Morlock, Harold Lunde

July 27 Henry Ackerman, Larry Lewis,

9:00 a.m. Acolytes Don Morlock, Harold Lunde

July 6 Kyra Bloom

July 13 Jana Cable (8:30 a.m. service)

July 20 Raphael Fretter

July 27 Taylor Hetrick

9:00 a.m. Crucifer

July 6 Don Ralston

9:00 a.m. Scripture Reader

July 6 Dianna Barnhisel

July 13 Heath Huber (8:30 a.m. service)

July 20 Marlene North

July 27 Joan Staib

Welcome Center

July 6 Cindy Tyrrell

July 13 Lee Sundermeier

July 20 Cindy Tyrrell

July 27 Fran Adams

ST. MARK’S STAFF

Pastor Dale Schaefer, ext. 113

racingrev2003@yahoo.com

Don Neifer, Parish Administrator, ext. 121

dneifer2001@yahoo.com

Toni Carey, Director of Christian Education and Director of Youth, ext. 115

tcarey59@hotmail.com

Kevin McGill, Director of Music, Organist, ext. 119

jsb1685km@yahoo.com

Diann Brown, Praise Team Director

teacher_mom_1@yahoo.com

Norm Carpenter, Bell Choir Director

noccac@hotmail.com

Eric Matthews, Youth Leader, ext. 152

dr_spartacus@hotmail.com

Rachel March, Youth Leader, ext. 151

rachelmarch@yahoo.com

Peggy Reisberg, Nursery Supervisor

Barb Billmaier, Volunteer Parish Nurse

Bill Baum and Karen Kline, Part Time Custodians

Harold Oberhaus, Treasurer

Jean Lewis, Financial Secretary

Terry Nowicki, Administrative Assistant, ext. 111

stmarkbg@dacor.net

WEB SITES AND E-MAIL INFORMATION:

Northwest Ohio Synod:

http://www.nwos-elca.org

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA):

http://www.elca.org

Disaster relief updates:

http://www.elca.org/dcs/disaster

Articles from the Lutheran magazine:

http://www.thelutheran.org

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Worship Services:

Saturday 5:00 p.m.

Sunday 9:00 Traditional Service & 11:00 a.m. Praise Service

Healing Service 2^nd Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

e-mail: stmarkbg@dacor.net

website: www.stmarkslutheranbg.org