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Welcome
to our Weekly
Sheep Buzz Newsletter
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At the December meeting, the 2023 Church Council voted to move the Mission Endowment funds into a 3 year fixed rate account in the ELCA Mission Investment Fund. This will provide a higher rate of return for the Endowment.
Council discussed:
- Developing a process for requesting repairs and maintenance as well as a church emergency handbook.
- A congregation-wide Bible study for Lent. Details to come.
- The Stewardship campaign which has resulted in increased giving.
The 2024 Council elected the following officers:
President: Craig Stitchtenoth
Vice President: Scott Panhorst
Secretary: Janice Swinford
Financial Secretary: Sharron Ryan
Treasurer: Rob Homer
2024 Committee Liaisons:
Caring for Creation: Gordon Swordsma, Barb Kidder, Sharron Ryan
Congregational Care: Janice Swinford
Facilities: Scott Panhorst
Fellowship: Barb Kidder
Finance: Rob Homer
Outreach: Ruth Clark
Personnel: Gordon Swordsma
Stewardship: Sharron Ryan
Worship and Music: Clint Gruwell
Youth and Family: Karen Epstein and Brooke Myers
Accolades from council
- Ken Eggers and Clint Gruwell for repairing the garden beds
- Outgoing Council members- Holly Jones, Melinda Mundis, Anna Louise Panhorst and Matt Provost
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Council has now posted information including Council Minutes and more detailed financial numbers, in the Fellowship Hall. | |
Use this QR code or link to our giving platform. Look for the colorful tile labeled Southeastern Synod Pledge and make your donation. | |
Synod Pledge
Looking for a way to contribute to the Southeastern Synod? The easiest way is through our Vanco Mobile Online Giving Platform. You can donate any way you like, 1 time or set something up as a recurring donation using a credit or debit card. We will also gladly accept any contributions by check, be sure to put "synod pledge" in the memo line and place in the bookkeeeper wall slot or offering plate.
Thank you.
Donate Now
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Our final Advent worship will take place on December 20th, at noon and 7:30 PM. The meditation will be on Revolution and Reversal. The noon service will be livestreamed on our Facebook page, @gslcwoodstock.
Dessert will be provided by our Fellowship Committee prior to the Wednesday evening Advent worship services. Come at 6:45 PM and join in some fellowship time with your Good Shepherd family.
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Youth Christmas Pageant
Come and enjoy our youth reenact the story of the Birth of Baby Jesus, between services on December 17th, at 9:45 AM in Fellowship Hall. You can enjoy Christmas tunes, acting, and your cup of joe while taking in the festive spirit. Stick around after the pageant for our annual Cookie Walk, benefitting our Youth. Boxes will be sold for $5.
Pageant participants: Read your Lamb Buzz and other notices from Mel on final rehearsal times.
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Pick up a postcard and invite someone for Christmas. These premade postcards are available on the Welcome Desk. Please be sure to include a personal note. Let's fill the church and announce that Christ the Savior is Born! | |
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2024 is Just Around the Corner
The new 2024 flower and donut charts are now posted in the Administration Hallway. Secure your favorite dates! Prices remain the same. $30 for donuts and $40 for flowers. Always remember to include a form, checks can be made out to GSLC. Please note flowers or donuts in the memo line on your checks. You can also pay online, using the donate button on our website. Want to help serve donuts? Contact a member of our Fellowship team or the church office.
Phones
We have new phones! They follow the hours of the office open and close times. The office is officially open M-TH 9 AM-3 PM, Sun 8 AM - 12 PM.
When you call Good Shepherd during normal business hours you will receive a message. During that message, if you want to reach:
· Any member of our staff: press or say 1
· Melina: press or say 4
· Donna: press or say 5
· Pastor: press or say 6
· Carrie: press or say 7
· Pam: press or say 8
During the times the office is closed, for emergency purposes, you can reach pastor by email or her cell phone (business cards are available on the Welcome desk). If you'd like to leave a message for a staff member at this time, it will be routed to the Office Coordinator, Mel's voicemail. These messages will be received during normal business hours.
Holiday Hours
The church office will be closed the week after Christmas; we will be operating with limited staff.
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Youth Sunday is coming soon on January 28th, at the 10:45 AM service and a Family Fun Night of bowling that evening at Stars and Strikes in Woodstock at 5 PM. | |
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Looking for all the news for our Youth? Be sure to read your Wednesday, Weekly Lamb Buzz Email. Some exciting things are happening at GSLC for all ages of our youth. Access each week on our website under the Youth Tab, the button below or sign-up to be on the e-mail list. Let Mel know at youthfamministry@gslutheran.org if you want to be included in the email blast.
| Read the Weekly Lamb Buzz newsletter for more details. | |
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The Annual Empty Nester's Christmas party was held this year in Canton. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Local on North followed by Christmas lights photo ops and a terrific Christmas show by Glowband at the Canton Theatre. The band even gave a special shout-out "Thank You" to our group of 40 for coming, followed by a festive rendition of "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause"!
From start to finish this was one of our most enjoyable events we've ever had. Many thanks go out to everyone who helped to make this happen.
Karen and Tammy, your Empty Nester's Coordinators
See more pictures from the event here.
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Thank you to all that joined us for caroling! We had a wonderful time! | |
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Ladies Night Out
Date: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 Time: 7 PM
Tuscany
250 Cinema View
Woodstock, GA 30189
Sign up in Fellowship Hall.
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YARN ANGELS
Our next meeting will be on Monday, January 15th, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the home of Jennifer Taylor. Light refreshments will be provided.
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A new member class will be scheduled sometime in January. If you have been thinking about joining Good Shepherd, please let Pastor Karen know and we can begin to send you some materials about membership.
Email Pastor Karen here.
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Card ministry at GSLC
We now have Beautiful HANDMADE CHRISTMAS CARDS are available for purchase! There will be single cards (minimum donation of $2.00), as well as 3 card bundles which are available for a minimum donation of $5.00 - a great value.
When you need to send a card, this is a handy way to pick up a beautiful card and support Good Shepherd’s outreach efforts, as each card has a Good Shepherd label on the back. All proceeds will support our Good Shepherd Youth Mission Trips. This ministry is being hosted by Molly Maher, Linda Rowell and Pam Hough
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A big thank you to all who have contributed to the stewardship campaign to date. Please know that your unwavering commitment is invaluable; we are so grateful. As a congregation, we are blessed to see the positive trend in contributions. If you still need to complete a form, you can click the button below to obtain a form or pick one up on the welcome desk.
We are gearing up for the Ministry Fair on January 14th. We would love to have representation from all our GSLC committees. If your small group or Bible study group would also like to sponsor a table, please let a member on Stewardship know so we can set up the appropriate amount of tables for the event.
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MORE WAYS TO HELP SERVE!!!
We have sign up opportunities online and in the Entryway to serve during the Christmas services.
Please consider volunteering.
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You May Have Been Assigned a Servant Role
If switching to a new role, please email our Office Coordinator, Melina, so she can add you to our schedules. Also, please let the office know in advance if you are scheduled, or future plans have you going away and cannot serve. Thank you.
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CARING FOR CREATION
We will not meet in December due to midweek Advent services. Our next meeting will be Wednesday, January 10, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. on Teams
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GARDEN OF GRACE: Fall plantings include radishes, lettuce, spinach and carrots. We have already been harvesting radishes and lettuce and expect to have carrots in a few weeks. The peppers have produced abundantly all summer, but were killed by the recent freezing weather. All produce harvested from the Garden of Grace is donated to Forever Fed.
CARING FOR CREATION: Our recycling initiatives are going well including collection of oral care waste, small batteries, used eyeglasses, pop tabs and Hefty energy bags for hard to recycle items. We recently added collection of beverage pull tabs. We will resume collection of prescription medicine bottles tin January. If you have questions, please see any member of the committee.
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Reducing our Carbon Footprint
For the next couple weeks, the Caring for Creation Committee will highlight articles on ways you can reduce your carbon footprint at home. Our next article is about Thermostats. You can read this article and more on our website. Here is the introduction to that article:
Thermostats
Growing up we had a thermostat that was a dial that would set the temperature you wanted your house to be set at and a switch that would toggle between cooling and heating. It was a very simple design; however, the thermostat didn’t know when we were home or not and would simply set the temperature based on the overall house temperature and what we wanted the temperature to be.
Since purchasing my own home I have installed programmable thermostats that indicate when based on time and temperature when the furnace or A/C should run. Click here to read more....
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News from the SES Synod and ELCA | |
Available for any and all ages!! | |
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Most school groups on break till January 21
- Jan 7: All are invited to a "How to spot a scam" seminar, in Fellowship Hall | 10 AM
- Jan 14: All are encouraged to attend the Ministry Fair at - 9:45 AM, younger kids will have activities available in the classrooms, so parents can attend the fair.
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Coffee and Conversation meets Sunday mornings at 9:45 AM, and is engaged in a study titled, God's Law is Love" that includes excerpts from several books of the New Testament. We will continue to meet on this study through Dec. 17th. Ben Setzer continues to lead this group. | |
WEEK DAY BIBLE STUDY OPPORTUNITIES | |
Wednesday Lunch and Learn: Our final week for, Bless the Advent We Actually Have, by Kate Bowler. We will meet in the Meeting Room at 11:00 AM. Bring your lunch and join us for this lunchtime study. We are always looking for new study partners. We will break unitil January. | |
Word of Wednesday (WOW): Word on Wednesday meets at 10:00 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall. Virtual options will be available for those not able to attend in person. We invite you to join us in our journey along the path of life with God as we study "The Serenity Prayer - a simple prayer to enrich your life" by Trevor Hudson. Lori Peters continues to lead this group. We are on break until January 3rd. | |
Thursday Bible Study: We will have our potluck this Thursday beginning at 11 AM. We will then resume our meetings on January 4th. | | |
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Men in Mission and our High School Youth cooking and serving an evening meal at the Extension in Marietta. | |
Theology on Tap will resume, at 6:30 PM in January.
Theology on Tap will take a break for Advent/Christmas and will resume every other Wednesday, January 10, 24 and February 7. It's a great time to join a great group of Christians, with open discussions on varied topics.
We will continue our discussion at Game Day in Woodstock, at 2990 Eagle Dr. We gather around 6:30 PM to order food, begin our discussion around 7 PM, and continue till about 8:30 PM.
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NEXT OUTREACH MEETING
Our next outreach meeting will be held January 7, at 9:30 AM. Please plan to attend if you are able. We will not be meeting in December.
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This Month Two Can Sunday is sponsoring a food drive for Timothy Lutheran Cupboard. See the top Urgently Needed Donations below. Use the bins in Fellowship Hall.
We will be running this drive the entire month of December.
Papa's Pantry was overwhelmed with Good Shepherd's food gererostiy for the month of November. They extend their sincere thanks for your donations. God bless you!
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Thank you to all who have donated to our Angel Tree. A special shout out to our delivery drivers and organizers. | |
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Upcoming Outreach Events
The Outreach Committee will be collecting gently-used coats, jackets, sweaters and raincoats for men, women and children during the months of January and February. Please make sure that they are clean with no tears. We will be donating them to the Homeless Veterans and the Cherokee Women's Shelter.
Also, mark your calendars for January 15th, Martin Luther King Day of Service. We will be writing notes to our active military, making gifts for the First Responders that serve our area and delivering them and making gift bags for Sunabella and The Oaks Assisted Living homes and delivering them.
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Consider bringing a food donation and leave in the barrels on our front porch.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us - Ephesians 5: 1-2a.
Must Ministries Website
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This is our submission form for you to submit non-urgent prayer concerns. Prayers will be posted to the Prayer Circle, via e-mail, during normal business hours, usually around 3 PM. As always, if you have an urgent prayer request, please contact Pastor by cell or email.
If you would like to pray for others, as part of our prayer circle, please contact our Office Coordinator and she can add you to the Prayer Circle group.
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Please print your bulletin from home if you are able.
Worship Bulletins: 8:30 AM |10:45 AM
Donate Online
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
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