Last week our good friends Gene and Susan Lake were passing through town after having enjoyed a week in New Orleans. Gene was formerly the president of the council at Christ Lutheran where I had served prior to coming to St. Paul’s; Susan is an author of books on computing skills and web design who’s done wonders for Christ Lutheran’s web presence. Carolyn and I met the Lakes here at the church, and before we headed out for lunch, I took them on a quick tour of our facilities. As we were coming to the end of our walk-about, Gene asked me, “Well, Mike, how’s it going?” I started rattling off all the projects we’ve had going —spring boxes for CAR, Children’s Church, Lutheran Campus Ministry—but finally I said, “Gene, I’m having fun!”

St. Paul Lutheran Church begins its stewardship season in two parts. The first starting with six temple talks from October 16 to November 13, concluding with the offering of pledges on November 20.

Three of the temple talks will highlight St. Paul’s mission of outreach and good works and will be given by three (of many) groups that benefit from your financial and spiritual gifts. They are:

• Oct. 16 Jamie Strickler - Interfaith Federation of Greater Baton Rouge
• Oct. 23 LSU Lutheran Campus Ministry
• Oct. 30 TBA possibly Capital Elementary.

The next two temple talks will emphasize St. Paul’s home mission and spirituality.

• Nov. 6 Bricks and Boards at St. Paul
• Nov. 13 Spiritual Gifts.

On November 20, the offering of your pledges supporting the missions of St. Paul.

The second part of the stewardship season will start in January 2012 and will glean the spiritual gifts, experience, strong interests, and hobbies that are in St. Paul’s congregation. This information will help guide St. Paul in the directions its missions
will take and identify people to assist in these missions.

Dr. Stuart Dorsey will be installed as the 15th President of Texas Lutheran University on Friday, October 28, at two o’clock in the Jackson Auditorium of Texas Lutheran University, Seguin, Texas.

Dr. Dorsey, a former economics professor, academic dean, and university president was named the 15th President of Texas Lutheran University on April 12, 2011 and officially joined TLU on July 1, 2011.

Prior to being named TLU President, Dr. Dorsey served as the ninth President of the University of Redlands in Redlands, California, from 2005-2010. Before serving as President at the University of Redlands, he was the vice president for academic affairs at the University of Evansville in Indiana and vice president and academic dean at Baker University, Baldwin City, KS. Early in his career Dorsey was a research economist with the U.S. Department of Labor before being appointed chief economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. With the Finance Committee and its chairman, Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., Dorsey worked on a wide range of policy issues, including the federal deficit, Social Security, Medicare and reform of the tax code.

Once again, St. Paul will be providing food baskets to families at Capital Elementary School at Thanksgiving. The baskets contain a turkey, all the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner and usually a little something extra. Our plan is to provide boxes.

This year, our local Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Chapter has graciously offered to sponsor this project by providing us with matching funds for this effort. In order to meet their recordkeeping needs, we are asking for monetary donations only this year. We will then purchase all of the food we need from Hi Nabor Supermarket, supporting a local business in the process.

Based on family size in the past, the items needed to fill each box cost $50-60 including the cost of the turkey. If you can contribute enough to sponsor a whole family, that’s great, but every contribution helps. If we exceed what we need to meet the basics, we will purchase additional food for these families.

Beginning on Sunday, October 23, envelopes will be available in church for your donations. If you want to make a donation prior to then, please make checks payable to St. Paul, and place them in an envelope labeled, “Thanksgiving Baskets” with your envelope
number and the amount of your contribution on the outside. That will make things easier for both the counters and for record keeping for Thrivent.

This year, the offering taken during Children’s Church has been designated to go to the ELCA Malaria Initiative, which as the goal of raising $15 million to fight malaria, a leading cause of illness and death in developing countries. Our companion synod, the Lutheran Church in the Central African Republic, is a major participant in this initiative.

One of the major efforts of the Malaria Initiative is purchasing mosquito nets to place over sleeping places at night, the time when mosquitoes are most active. These nets only cost $10 each to buy and ship, however they have the potential to save thousands of lives.

We are tracking our progress by “zapping” mosquitoes. Stop by the education building and check the bulletin board by the door for our progress and the youth room to see how far we still have to go.

Grown-ups are welcome to contribute to the effort. Checks should be payable to St. Paul with “ELCA Malaria Initiative” in the subject line, or you can place a cash donation in the Children’s Church collection box in the youth room on Sunday morning.

Augsburg Fortress and Olive Tree Bible Software have teamed up to offer the Lutheran Study Bible in the BibleReader app. The Lutheran Study Bible with NRSV includes new Revised Standard Version text and all the study notes, articles, maps, and charts from the Lutheran Study Bible and it’s only $29.99. For more information, visit the Augsburg Fortress website at www.augsburgfortress.org or call 1-800-328-4648.

Kale Wetekamm is the President of the Lutheran Campus Ministry at LSU. He became involved in LCM his freshman year. After Pastor Stanley Eckerman’s retirement, he was motivated to “bring life, focus and cohesion to the small group that remained, so that we,
along with the students I knew graduating and entering college from my home church, would have a place to find Godat LSU.”

Kale feels that God has worked through many people in LCM’s recent history to expand and enhance the ministry. “Each week I am grateful for the chance to study God’s word together and enjoy friends at LCM,” he said, adding that “we hope LCM continues to bring
Christian students together in faith and friendships to make the college journey together.”

LCM Student Jimmy Bruno, a Ph.D. candidate in Chemical Engineering, has taken up the challenge to participate in the Ride to the Springs, the bike ride St. Paul is sponsoring to raise money to build spring boxes in our companion synod in the Central African Republic. Jimmy is an Illinois native, so he could use some local sponsors. You can make a donation in his name, or donate based on how many miles he ends up riding (the course is 60 miles from start to finish, and Jimmy is a pretty strong rider).

There will be a sponsor sheet in the narthex after worship up until the ride on October 29, or you can e-mail your pledge to Sheryl Zeis (slz254@gmail.com) who will record it on the sheet.

The next fundraiser for the Lutheran Church in CAR will be a bicycle and run event on October 29 at the Tammany Trace Bike Trail near Abita Springs. Participants will solicit sponsorships and pledges for number of miles completed. However, the event is not limited to members of St. Paul, everyone is invited who wants to bike or run for the springs and is also willing to solicit pledges. Members of the Brotherhood, a group of riders for fallen first responders, will be invited to ride with us. They will have the opportunity to contribute to the Rob Moorhead Memorial fund. A donation of $30 will be requested of riders or runners (or walkers) for either fund. And, if there are enough registrants, we will reserve a room for lunch in Abita Springs.

Participants can ride any distance they choose, from less than 2 miles to 100 miles or more by repeating the circuit. The run will take place with the ride on the Tammany Trace. Participants can run (or walk) any distance they choose. Runners, or walkers, will go at
their own pace. The entrance fee is $30 for each event entered. This is to cover the costs related to food, drink, and safety requirements. The fee will be waived for participants who collect $200 or more in pledges. The event starts at 8:00 am.

To obtain pledge forms, or for more information about the event, contact St. Paul at 225-923-3133.

This Fall, we are trying something a little different with adult education on Sunday. We will start the Fall on September 11th discussing a History Channel DVD, The Apostles. This program, which is narrated by Martin Sheen, features eminent theologians discussing the extraordinary, untold tales of the men Jesus selected to bring God’s plan to the world. We’ll follow that with an in-depth look at St. Paul in The Story of Paul the Apostle. Then later this Fall, Pastor Mike will lead an inter-generational series on “Old Testament Essentials: Six Key Stories.”

Everyone in the congregation, regardless of age, is welcome! We can all learn from each other.

Pastor Button will meet and work with all of St. Paul’s confirmands during the Sunday study hour from 9:15 to 10:15 a.m. for the coming year. In addition to an overview of the Bible and the Small Catechism, confirmands will also be helping with Children’s Church and partner with members in compiling an oral history of St. Paul Lutheran Church. We’re going to have a great year!

If you like to read––but even more, if you like to read and to discuss what you have read, please check out the St. Paul “shared inquiry” book discussion group. “Shared inquiry” means full-participation discussions, not book reports, nor lectures. Each member reads the same book and each participates in the leader-directed discussion and inquiry about the book.

Books are recommended and chosen by group vote. Fiction, autobiography, memoir, and history have been among our recent selections. Recent books have included Confederates In The Attic, The Poisonwood Bible, Out of My Life and Thought by Albert Schweitzer, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Language of God, Alone No Longer (about Carville LA National Hansen’s Disease Hospital), Muhammad: Prophet for Our Time, and Life of Pi.

Discussions are on the third Tuesday of each month, 7-8:30 pm, in the St. Paul library. The next discussion is on September 20 and will be about the book Wind, Sand and Stars. This memoir by early aviator, author, and philosopher Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s includes his observations about the grandeur, danger, isolation and exhilaration of early piloting over three continents. Within a year after publishing his most famous book, Le Petit Prince, Exupéry disappeared over the Mediterranean in 1944 while flying for his squadron.

For additional information about the book discussion group, contact Carol Harbo.

“For freedom Christ has set us free ... only do not use this freedom as an occasion for self-indulgence, but serve one another in love.” — Galatians 5:1, 13

“Freed in Christ to Serve”

was the theme for last month’s 2011 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), but it is more than just a theme. It expresses the heart of our faith. In Christ we are both bound to be free from the power of sin, death and the devil, and free to be bound to God in faith and to our neighbor in service.

The grammatical nuance in “freed” (rather than “free”) makes clear that our present status of freedom is God’s work and it is already accomplished, as Martin Luther explained in the Small Catechism, “[Christ] has purchased and freed me from all sins.”

As part of our local outreach, St. Paul is a partner with Capitol Elementary School. Members of St. Paul tutor 3rd and 4th graders in reading and math, provide enrichment opportunities, encourage teachers and staff, and work at physical improvement on the campus.