Pastor

Date:  November 2, 2020

From the Pastor’s Desk:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you in these trying times. At the Church Council meeting, I was encouraged to write concerning certain topics. I will do that now.

1. The question of how to get on Zoom was brought up. I believe the instructions for entering onto Zoom are on the front page of every bulletin program. But I will discuss the basics here and now. This is being done so that you can invite friends, relatives, and even strangers to join us for worship hour at 10 AM on Sunday or to our Wednesday Bible study at 10 AM. The basics begin with your being able to come onto Zoom with either a telephone with a landline or smartphone but no Internet connection. The telephone number, we’ve established is free to use 800 number. That means no one listening has to pay for their minutes and those minutes should not count against their/your phone plan. The number is 1 (888) 788 – 0099. The Sunday worship meeting ID is 83738568539. If asked for a personal ID number, enter the # key and wait.  Your call will be put into our waiting area and Susan Roberts will admit you. This is part of Zoom’s security system and we must use it. Each Zoom meeting has a meeting ID.  For our Sunday Worship Hour and for Wednesday Bible study each has a different ID.  Those numbers will stay the same for each scheduled recurring meeting. The above 83738568539 is what you need for Sunday, but for the Wednesday Bible study, the ID number is 84718425459. If you have problems getting in please call me at 385-234-1931 before the service starts. I will try to help you get in. By far the easiest way to get into Zoom is for us to have your email address. We will put that on file for Zoom invitations. For each activity that we have on Zoom, we will send you an email link. When you receive your email link, all that is needed is for you to click on it. Computers and smartphones can use this link and you will be able to see, hear, and visit with us as you would like. You have the ability to enter with or without video. You also have the ability to mute. Once we start the worship service Susan Roberts will mute everyone except the speakers like the assigned elder, the organist, or myself.  Before the service, we will not mute you and after the service the same is true, but you will need to unmute yourself to visit.  Both before and after the service you are invited to visit with all of us for a brief time. We try to be ready for you to join us about 15 minutes before the meeting starts. We do try to start on time and Susan is good at keeping that process working. If you desire to use the invitation link, send your email address to  susan.roberts.utah@gmail.com or  rev.dr.hankmalone@gmail.com
2. We have worked hard to make this zoom program and equipment work for our ministry.  The last three services, before yesterday’s service, left me unsettled, to say the least. The devil is in the details.   To correct the problems we have bought a new computer twice.  We paid for only one.  We also had installed a dedicated router for the sanctuary to get the Wi-Fi bandwidth stable to prevent freezing up. We dealt with the poor audio. I purchased for us a Bluetooth headset with a microphone to improve our quality of sound. This cordless system makes it possible for me to approach the altar for prayer and move around the sanctuary normally. Since I had three failures in a row with communication, I tested the present system on the Council meeting last Tuesday and at the Bible study on Wednesday. It performed without a hitch. I did pray we would have the same results on Sunday and it appears we did. During our prayers, someone called me and my hearing aids are blue tooth also so I had the phone ringing in my ear until it shut off.  I prayed that you did not hear that too.  I had the phone on silent but that doesn’t seem to matter.  Watching the Reformation service at St. Paul, I noticed that even though they live-streamed to U-Tube they had audio problems for some of the speakers and their system is much more sophisticated than ours.  Thank God for small successes.

I was asked to point to our web page for the church, which is also on the front page of your worship program cover page under the physical address for St. John’s. If you have Wi-Fi, you should try connecting to this web address and see what we have done there. We have really moved forward here. Dave and Susan and many others have added much to it. Susan’s husband, Jim, has been working on a new web page for us and I for one am looking forward to his results. Dave and Dan and others have been trying to get the PayPal app functioning on our web page.  We chose to use PayPal for security reasons and are now in the process of installing it for testing.  We hope to have it up within the week so that your offering can then be done by computer, or check by snail mail as fits your needs while the pandemic rages on. Yes, your offerings are still needed for us to continue to function as a church and accomplish our mission work here in the community.  Our church website is www.stjohnslutheranslc.org. This is given here for your ease of use and encouragement.

Suggestions for improvement are always welcome.We need and want you to invite others to our Website and to view our Zoom ministry.  Your friends, family, neighbors and strangers are all good candidates for membership in the Christian Church with you. We want to see them in heaven with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and us.  If they don’t know Jesus, they will not get there. “He that believes and is baptized will be saved.” He that does not believe/trust in Jesus as their Savior will not be saved.  They cannot save themselves and our mission is to share the good news of God’s salvation through Christ Jesus with them.

Our preschool website is www.stjohnsccdc.org.  Look it over and realize this is one of our most active ministries here in Salt Lake, even during the pandemic.  We are, in fact, one of the largest preschools in Missouri Synod.  Our executive administrator, Chaney Zinn, and her capable staff have really done an excellent job to make this ministry blossom, with the Lord’s help of course, making it into something we can all be very proud of and support. It fills a great need in our community and offers both opportunity and service to our Lord.

One thing on the horizon for us to bring into being is St. John’s Bible College.  Volunteers to help me get this organized and off the ground are really needed.  So come forward with your time, treasures and talent.  My hope is to put this together and launch it as a virtual college on line using Zoom in January of 2021.

Our church property has lots of opportunity for service.  Dennis Polster, Dave Lust, and Don Sandoval and other volunteers have helped to keep things together.  I am reminded that those over 70 are getting or are extremely tired and that we need new blood to augment these great volunteers.  We need to pass down the wisdom of how it is all put together and where everything is while this talent is available.  Please make yourself available if this is something you are willing to do.  Otherwise we are going to have to pay for services and the budget is badly strained right now.  We have some money in reserve and decided not to replace the 25 year old flat roof on the school at St. John’s until after we get through the pandemic. We may need to use it for emergencies to get through some very hard times.  Even if we do not expend it this winter, we will need to replace the swamp coolers for the church and school this spring.  We need an additional $20,000 added to what we have to do the roof and replace the swamp cooler.  God will provide and I trust He will bless us with what we need to accomplish this.

Vicar Paul Chuol is going to be preaching in English in our 10 AM services as he is getting closer to ordination.   Please be patient with him as he learns how to proclaim God’s love and forgiveness.  He has only about six months left before he graduates from Concordia’s EIIT program.  It will then be time for him to be ordained and receive a call as a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor.  We will need to support his development and watch the wonder of the Lord creating this new servant of His word.  He and I will team preach during this period. We will hear the Word of God and bless His holy Name as we look forward to this milestone in the kingdom of God.

Confirmation class begins the evening of November 15, tentatively set for 7 p.m.   I have one student, but I am open to anyone young or old who wishes to join the class.  We will be doing this by Zoom.  Classes like this will be part of our Zoom archive.

Considering the church website, those who have topics they would like to have explained please make your suggestions to me by email. rev.dr.hankmalone@gmail.com.  I will try to set up a series of questions and answers to better explain what the Lutheran Church and Holy Scripture says about these topics and post them on our web page for all to read and understand.

What Lutherans believe, teach, and confess will be one of those topics.

I plan to make up a series of Zoom shorts titled “My concerns for our Mormon neighbors ” which will discuss Mormon teachings and how they are understood against the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. Some good honest loving dialog should be helpful.

The future opportunity for our ministry together is exciting and hopeful.  We will move on as God leads us into the future in His Kingdom here on earth. As we develop new tools like Zoom we should utilize them to the good of our neighbors and the glory of God.  To Him be the glory forever!  Amen!

You are welcome to kick these things around and help your church and ministry move forward.

See you at the voters meeting this Sunday.

Joy and Peace,

Pastor Hank