Holy Week 2022 Schedule
Palm Sunday, April 10
Worship at 9am and 11am; all ages palm crosses art project at 10am
Good Friday, April 15
Worship at noon and 7pm
Easter Sunday, April 17
Traditional worship at 9am, contemporary worship at 11am; Easter breakfast/fundraiser in the Fellowship Hall at 10am. Freewill offering. All proceeds will support Beth and Mike’s medical costs.
Ash Wednesday 2022 Schedule
Please know that the leaders and people of Faith Lutheran Church hold you in God's Light during yet another season of disturbance and sorrow.
Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday (March 2), Faith will be open for prayer and worship.
Noon to 1pm: The church will be open during the noon hour for quiet prayer and we will offer the imposition of ashes and Holy Communion at that time.
Evening Activities:
6pm, Youth games
6:30pm, Soup Supper
7:15pm, Ash Wednesday Worship, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus." This will be an interactive service of song and prayer that gives opportunity to share our sorrow and prayers for peace, for health, for wholeness and life in a time of continuing struggle and dis-ease. Livestreamed at FLC's Facebook Page: HERE
Be blessed and encouraged, friends. You are Beloved of God. No matter what. Welcome Home.
Pastor Brenda
Donate to Relief Efforts in Ukraine
Some folks have been asking about places to contribute to relief efforts in Ukraine. Just want to put out a warning that fake charities have been popping up online that look like they will benefit Ukraine but will actually send your money who-knows-where.
Two sites that we know we can trust are Lutheran World Relief and Lutheran World Federation. Links to their Ukraine-specific donation pages are below.
Love and Peace,
We pray for all people
whose lives are in peril in Ukraine.
We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe
in a world emancipated from violence.Heal the wounds of mind, body and spirit that will occur due to the violence in our world.
Help us to devote ourselves to the task of making peace in our own neighborhoods and around the world. No one is hidden from your love.
Help us be home to others.
Help us manifest your love and peace to the world.
(Prayer from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Their website lists more ways you can help.)
2021 Annual Report
The annual meeting will be held at 11am on Sunday, January 30, and there will be an online attendance option.
Click the button below to open the 2021 Annual Report. Please note that the official ballot will be slightly different, as the empty slots in committees have been filled out since the publishing of this document.
What is the orange banner about?
In the summer of 2021, the remains of 215 bodies were found outside a boarding school for Indigenous children in Kamloops, B.C., even as the remains of 9 children were repatriated to the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota from a boarding school in Pennsylvania. We are faced with the reality that for nearly 100 years the U.S. government and white settlers forcibly removed children from their families in order to assimilate them into white, “good Christian” culture. Our Native American and Alaskan Native neighbors still suffer deeply from the scars of this trauma and its lasting effects on their individual and community wellbeing.
This congregation is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), whose Northern European forebears settled across the Great Plains and into the Pacific Northwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, displacing the tribal residents of the lands we homesteaded. But we also made friends: members of tribal peoples joined our congregations. And in 2021 the ELCA American Indian/Alaska Native Lutheran Association asked ELCA churches to hang orange banners in sanctuaries or other prominent places to recognize, remember, and honor the lives of children lost to the boarding school system, the generational trauma incurred by this sin, and our commitment to learn from the past and make amends as best we are able.
Faith’s orange banner features the handprints of our members and words that express our commitment to listen, lament, and love our Indigenous Neighbors. We hung it on Reformation Day 2021, and it will be up through June 2022—a bit more than one day for each child found or returned last summer. Its design was inspired by the University of Victoria’s 2021 Orange Shirt Day “Heart and Hands” emblem, created by UVIC’s Audain Professor of Contemporary Art Practice of the Pacific Northwest, Carey Newman. Newman writes:
"This design was made to honour the children who died in residential school. The hearts express love for all those in unmarked graves and compassion for the families and communities who waited for them to be found. The small and colourful hands remind us of the uniqueness and beauty of every child. Taken together, they represent our commitment to listen to our hearts and use our hands, to do the work that needs to be done.
The visceral confirmation of Survivor accounts that has come from locating these graves has affected many of us on an emotional level. It has changed the way that many people think and feel about our histories and current realities in Canada."
- Artist Carey Newman Hayalthkin’geme (Kwakwaka'wakw/Coast Salish) on "Hearts and Hands"
Youth/Children Staffing Feedback
Click the button below to see the results of the recent feedback form regarding Children and Youth Ministry staffing at Faith Shelton. More detailed results are available from the church office upon request (email welcomehome@faithshelton.org)
Job Posting: Director of Children and Youth Ministry
Edit: Job Posting Closed. Thank you!
We’re hiring a full-time Director of Children and Youth Ministry! Please see the job description below (or click here if it isn’t loading). Please email a cover letter and resume to doug@faithshelton.org by noon on Wednesday, August 11.
Let's Not Forget
A word from Pastor Terry on the importance of “remembrance” services in the grieving process. If one of your loved ones has died during the pandemic, you may have missed some of these opportunities for grieving, so let’s take a second to acknowledge and think about that.
May always concludes with “Memorial Day”, a time that is set aside for so much more than simply the transition to summer, family BBQ’s, and outdoor activities. It was originally set aside to remember the lives of those who have died in service of our country, and grew over the years to include celebrations of remembrance and “decorating” of grave sites to honor all of our loved ones who have died through the years. One of the collateral damages done by the pandemic is that we have all experienced more than a year of delayed memorial and funeral services for our deceased loved ones. We have done our very best to adapt to all this coming up with all kinds of smaller, alternative expressions of our grieving, but quite frankly, we’ve all been looking forward to a “new normal” where larger gatherings for family celebrations of all kinds can be expressed.
May I just remind you of some of the needs we have that “remembrance” services are designed to meet:
REALITY - Funerals help us truly acknowledge that someone in our life has died
RECALL - Remembering the loved one who died and sharing our unique memories of them with others creates hope for the future.
SUPPORT - Funerals bring together people who care about each other in an atmosphere of love and support
EXPRESSION - Memorials allow us to express our inner thoughts and feelings about life and death in the light of our faith
MEANING - Funerals mark the significance of the life that was lived, and can help us continue to live with our own sense of meaning and purpose even in the face of loss
TRANSCENDENCE - Sharing together the promises of God help us to embrace the loss with the security of the symbols of our faith knowing that there is more yet to come because death is but a doorway to being with God and our loved ones forever.
Please feel free to call our pastoral staff at Faith if you would like to discuss any of these needs and any “postponed plans” your family may have for celebrating the life of your loved ones because of the limitations we’ve had due to the pandemic this past year. May God’s peace bless and keep you!
Pastor Terry
Faith Feedback Form April 2021
Thank you to the 82 people who responded to our survey about upcoming worship formats and the ministries of the church! Thank you also for your kind words of encouragement; they mean a lot to us.
View a PDF of the different charts and graphs that show the results of the polls.
Thank you to the 82 people who responded to our survey about upcoming worship formats and the ministries of the church! Thank you also for your kind words of encouragement; they mean a lot to us.
Click here to view a PDF of the different charts and graphs that show the results of the polls.
Here are some of the takeaways from the results.
Comfort levels with onsite events:
On the whole, it looks like a little over half of us are comfortable coming to worship and events onsite this summer, with over 75% who predict they will be comfortable attending onsite events this autumn. Of folks who are still worshiping from home, a few are waiting for contemporary worship to be offered onsite, some are waiting to be personally vaccinated, some are waiting for the CDC to declare that we’ve reached herd immunity, and others are waiting for mask mandates to be lifted.
Worship style and resources:
We’re all over the board when it comes to preferred worship style! 33% prefer contemporary, 47% prefer traditional, and 20% prefer blended/either type. Information about the worship style and schedule for the coming months is elsewhere in this newsletter. One frequent comment was that folks hope that we will continue to provide online worship resources. Our plan is to continue to livestream onsite services and to keep up the sermon podcast. The YouTube channel might slow down in the coming months as our musicians spend their time preparing for onsite services, but the currently existing videos will remain available!
Ministry priorities:
70-90% of respondents indicated “about right” amounts of attention dedicated to communication, prayer, pastoral care, visitation, worship, sermons, devotionals, building, property, and debt reduction. Lots of people indicated that they “don’t know” what amount of attention and resources are given to serving vulnerable populations and supporting public health efforts. Please see the latest newsletter (which will be available online here next week) for some reports about the ministries that we support and we will be highlighting those efforts in the coming months. Click here to view a document about how the ELCA uses the offerings that we give to the churchwide organization.
YAGM Presentation from Kara Barkman and Emily Shane
Kara Barkman and Emily Shane will be giving a joint presentation about their YAGM experiences next Sunday, January 24 at 10:30am (PST).
About a year and a half ago, Kara Barkman was preparing to embark on a year of service with Young Adults in Global Mission (YAGM). Many folks from Faith contributed to her fundraising efforts and kept up with her newsletters and blog posts while she was in Mexico.
Last August, Emily Shane joined the Faith Shelton community as office administrator/youth director/media specialist. She had been a YAGM serving in the UK from the same YAGM cohort as Kara.
Ordinarily, YAGM give presentations to their supporting congregations when they return from service. Due to the pandemic, Kara and Emily did not have the chance to give presentations like this when they returned to the US nearly a year ago. SO, the two of them will be giving a joint presentation about their YAGM experiences next Sunday, January 24 at 10:30am (PST). Here’s the link to the page where the video will go live.
If you have any questions that you want to make sure they cover, send an email to emily@faithshelton.org
See you then!
2021 Congregational Meeting
The 2021 Congregational Meeting will be taking place at 10:00am on Sunday, January 17, 2021. You may attend the meeting either on Zoom or in person (masked, social distancing).
The 2021 Annual Congregational Meeting will be taking place at 10:00am on Sunday, January 17, 2021.
Preparing for the Meeting
Here’s what you need for the meeting:
Click here to view the Annual Report. This includes a sample ballot at the very end.
(Revised and re-uploaded 1:23pm on January 10, 2021)
Click here to just view the sample ballot.
Click here to review job description and compensation package proposed for Rev. Brenda Satrum.
Click here to view the congregational constitution. We voted to adopt this constitution back in October; at this meeting we will vote to ratify it.
Attending the Meeting
Those who wish are welcome to attend the meeting in person. The meeting will take place in the sanctuary at 10:00am. Please arrive a few minutes early to sign in. Please wear a mask and observe social distancing. Bring the ballot that you received in the mail, fill it out, and turn it in at the meeting.
For those wishing to attend the meeting online (via Zoom), a link was sent via email on Monday, January 11 at around 6pm. It will be sent out again via email on Saturday, January 16th.
Plan to log in a few minutes early to make sure you are connected and get signed in, etc. The meeting room will open at around 9:45am.
Voting
You must be recorded as having attended the meeting in order for your vote to count.
If you are attending in person, you will submit your ballot as you leave.
If you are attending online, you will need to fill out and turn in your ballot by noon on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. DO NOT MAIL YOUR BALLOT. Instead, you CAN:
Drop it off at the church office (a secure box will collect the ballots);
Scan and email your ballot(s) to welcomehome@faithshelton.org;
Contact the church office (360.426.8611) or Pastor Doug (406.381.0885) to arrange for a volunteer to come to your house to collect your ballot.
These methods are in accordance with the legal advice published by the synod. Questions, concerns, accommodations? Email welcomehome@faithshelton.org.
2020 Christmas Pageant
The virtual Christmas pageant was a success! 31 children and young adults appeared in the show, as well as a few older children of God. We were even able to incorporate some kids from Kids Cove Preschool, which meets in our building. Thank you to all of the camera-people, kiddo-wranglers, and costumers/prop masters from each household; we couldn’t have done it without you!
Surviving the Holidays
Our GriefShare ministry will be hosting this online video seminar on Thursday, December 3rd at 1:00 pm. Everyone is welcome to attend this online webinar.
Our GriefShare ministry will be hosting this online video seminar on Thursday, December 3rd at 1:00 pm. Everyone is welcome to attend this online webinar. If you are interested in viewing it, please contact Terry Oliver through Messenger on Facebook, or at his email address, terryro@hcc.net. He will send you the link and get you registered. Peace to you in this season of hope amidst a sea of losses.
Healing of Our Nation Service
Watch the recording of our prayer service for the healing of our nation. You can also see the bulletin and watch the videos that we played during the service.
On October 28, we held a small prayer service to pray for the healing of our nation. Below is the recording of the whole service. Here is the bulletin that we used for the service.
Here’s a video that includes all of the ones that we showed on the screen during the service, with some musical interludes and silence as time for reflection:
COVID Response Questionnaire Results
In August, we asked the congregation to fill out another questionnaire to see how folks are feeling about the church’s response to COVID-19 and to pinpoint areas in which we could serve each other better. Click the button below to view a side-by-side comparison of the two surveys’ results.
In general, it seems that we need to do a better job of communicating what we are doing in each of these areas. Please keep an eye on the newsletters each month, as that’s where a lot of this information will be shared. In addition, we are working on making the newsletters available to read on the website! Look for that in the coming months.
Proposed Constitution Changes
View a summary of the proposed constitution amendments and the full draft constitution.
This January the Faith Lutheran Shelton church council appointed a committee to draft a new congregational constitution to more closely align with the 2019 ELCA Model Constitution for Congregations. The committee completed the draft of the new constitution in May and it is now ready for review by the congregation prior to a congregational vote to approve or disapprove the new constitution.
You can read a summary of the proposed changes and/or the entire draft constitution by clicking on the buttons below.
A New Face in the Office
Hello, Faith Shelton! My name is Emily Shane and I have just started here at Faith as a new office staff member with a variety of roles and responsibilities.
My friend Kait snapped this photo of me in London, England.
Hello, Faith Shelton! My name is Emily Shane and I have just started here at Faith as a new office staff member with a variety of roles and responsibilities. I am a lifelong ELCA Lutheran; my parents are both pastors of an ELCA church up in Poulsbo, Washington, and we as a family have lived here in western Washington for the past 18 years. I graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2019 (alongside Kara Barkman and Hannah Peterson) with a degree in computer science and a music minor. After graduation, I served with Young Adults in Global Mission for the 2019-2020 service year until it was cut short in March by COVID-19. My placement was in the UK in a Church of England parish in South London where I was primarily doing office administration, communications, and youth work. As a representative from that church, I also got to volunteer in local schools as a reading tutor, worship leader, and assembly speaker! Now that I’m back in the US, my long-term goal is to get a master’s degree and to become a math and computer science teacher.
Since you don’t know me very well, here are some conversation starters!
You could ask me
about my favorite place that I’ve traveled (my answer will likely change daily!),
what I missed most about the USA while I was in the UK, or
about the coolest things I did as part of the PLU music program.
Kids might want to ask me
who my favorite Animal Crossing villagers are,
what fictional character my dog is named after, or
what my “camp name” was when I was a counselor at a tech camp!
Feel free to email me to introduce yourself! I look forward to meeting you (virtually and/or physically distantly) in the coming days.