May 2022 Newsletter
Grace, Mercy, and Peace are yours in the Risen Christ. Amen.
Dear Family of God at Grace,
Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!
Another season at Grace Naples has end and things will slow down to a crawl. That’s sarcasm, things never slow down here at Grace. Let me start off this letter by giving thanks. Thank you to Pastor Kudart and Sandy for another wonderful season with us. Pastor Kudart is a great help to me and to the congregation. He is faithful in his visits to our shut-ins. His Wednesday Bible Class is well attended and well liked. Sandy dives in and helps with the Women of Grace, the Quilters, and the Wednesday night dinners. They have become part of our Grace family. I thank God for them, and their service!
I want to thank everyone who helped make our Lenten and Easter Journey such a joy. Thank you to the staff: Jonathan for providing wonderful music through the Lenten journey and especially on Easter Sunday. For Claudia who filled in, on short notice when Jonathan couldn’t play on Maundy Thursday due to illness. For the choirs and the joy, they brought to the services. For Kami and the youth and all their hard work for the dinners and the Easter breakfast. For Gwyn, her hard work of getting all the bulletins done. For Rene Hazelett for all the beautiful flowers for Easter. For all of you! We had around 750 in attendance during Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Thank you all for the blessing that you are to me and Grace.
School update: We have scheduled a special voters’ meeting for May 15th to discuss the possible opening of “Grace Classical Homeschool Consortium.” This is a big deal and very exciting. Our hope is to have a one room schoolhouse for 10 students. We would hire a teacher/administrator that would teach the core subjects of a classical education, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The teacher would also be on call one other day during the week for lesson planning and parent/teacher interaction. It is important that we understand, this is HOME SCHOOL. The responsibility for the child’s education falls on the parents. We would be providing an environment where home school can happen. We would love to start in the fall of 2022, but we may need to push back one more school year to find the right teacher/administrator. Dear family of God at Grace, this is a great way to help and support our young families at Grace. This will be a big part of our Voters’ Meeting on Sunday the 15th of May.
Interns at Grace: This year we have two summer interns at Grace. We have two wonderful staff members at Grace in Jonathan and Kami. We are a very healthy congregation. This will be a great opportunity for a student in the Director of Christian Education (DCE) and Director Parish Music (DPM) programs to experience what ministry looks like in a healthy congregation. Our own, home grown; Rachel Lingsch is our DCE intern. She will be working with Kami to provide a summer VBS as well as attending the National Youth Gathering as a leader. She will be learning from Kami how we plan and work here at Grace. Our DPM intern is Christal Zills soon to be Christal Hopfensperger. She is getting married to Andrew, her fiancé right before coming to Grace. Her soon-to-be husband Andrew is a pre-seminary student at Concordia Wisconsin. Christal will be working with Jonathan. She will see how we plan services and music. She will be playing services, helping to direct the choir, and working on the music camps we have planned this summer. This will be a great opportunity for these two young ladies to learn from us. It is also a great opportunity for Grace to see two, young up and coming leaders in our church body. To God be the glory.
One final bit of information for you. I have been nominated for President of the Florida/Georgia District. There are five candidates for the office. The election will be held on June 16th at the District Convention. I ask for your prayers for me and the other 4 candidates. Pray for the District. Pray for Grace. Pray that God’s will is done. Dear family of God at Grace, I am certainly not the favorite in this election, and I do not expect to be elected, but my name is on the ballet and only God knows. If elected, I will not be able to be the senior pastor at Grace. I will have 30 days from the 18th of June to take up the office. Dear sisters and brothers, fear not, we are in the Lord’s hands!
In His Service,
Pastor Lingsch