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Our congregation's purpose statement: Called and empowered to proclaim the radical love of Christ through lives of service.

April 20, 2025

Beloved Siblings in Christ,

On Easter morning, we gather as a people set free by grace to rejoice in the power of God's unconditional love, mercy, and forgiveness made known in the resurrection of Jesus. In a world that too often feels broken and burdened, Easter proclaims this truth: death does not have the final word. Love does.

Love calls us forward — not just to celebrate, but to move. Easter is not just a moment of joy on a Sunday morning. It is a movement of people committed to walking in the way of the risen Christ. In a time marked by division, injustice, and fear, we are invited to lean in more deeply to Jesus’ example: to welcome the stranger, stand with the marginalized, feed the hungry, and proclaim peace with our lives.

The resurrection reminds us who we are and what we are for. As a community grounded in grace, inclusion, generosity, and justice, we rise with Christ into a new way of being—one that refuses to accept the world as it is and dares to live as if God’s love truly changes everything.

Join us this Easter as we step into the movement of resurrection hope.

Faithfully yours,

Pastor Naomi

8:00a and 10:00a Sunday Bulletin

and 10:00a Online Worship Link

Click here or the picture above to access the Sunday worship bulletin for both the 8:00a and 10:00a Easter Sunday services.

Click here for live-streaming of the 10:00a worship service.

Calendar

This Sunday, April 20 ~ Resurrection of Our Lord

+8:00a -- Garden Service: Memorial Garden.
9:00a -- Breakfast: Activities Room.
9:20a -- Egg Hunt: Memorial Garden.
+10:00a -- Sunday Celebration: Sanctuary. (In-person and live-streamed on YouTube)
11:15a -- Fellowship Time: Join us for conversation and refreshments in the Activities Room.

+ Service includes Holy Communion.

Monday, April 21

The church office is closed on Mondays.
4:30p to 5:30p -- French Lessons: Activities Room. (Community Group)
5:00p to 7:00p -- Music Objective & Structure Team (MOST): Sanctuary.
6:30p to 9:00p -- Sunrise Presidio Townhomes Board meeting: Activities Room. (Community Group)

Tuesday, April 22

Tuesday through Friday, 9:00a to 3:00p -- Church Office is open: Use the south entry door and ring the doorbell if the door is locked.
5:00p to 6:30p -- Council meeting: Activities Room. (In-person and Zoom) Click here to join the Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 868 6430 5413 Passcode: LCFCouncil

Wednesday, April 23

Noon -- Articles are due for "Weekly Footnotes": Church Office.
4:30p to 6:00p -- Los Campaneros handbell rehearsal: Sanctuary.

Thursday, April 24

10:00a to 11:30a -- Thursday Journey: Activities Room.

Friday, April 25

9:00a to 11:30a -- PEO Reciprocity Council meeting: Activities Room. (Community Group)
5:45p to 8:00p -- AA PreWeekenders & Al-Anon Sunset: Activities Room. (Community Groups)

Saturday, April 26

10:00a to 12:00p -- Celebration Choir rehearsal: Sanctuary.
12:00p to 1:30p -- Read & Yak Book Club: Activities Room.

Coming Up

April 27 -- Super Youth @ Tanque Verde Lutheran Church
April 28 -- Beyond the Book: Beyond Bread (Speedway & Wilmot)
April 30 -- All (Salaried) Staff meeting

Community Service

Community Service Emphasis through the end of April: NELM Water Project

A pickup truck pulls onto the five-acre campus of the Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission (NELM) in northeastern Arizona and up to its water well. Two residents of the Navajo Nation hop out and begin filling two large, portable tanks. This task, including their drive to the mission and back home, can take as long as three hours. Like many Navajo Nation residents, the two men lack running water in their homes.

“About half of our community members don’t have any water or electricity,” says Patterson Yazzie, NELM executive director. “We’ve been able to support the families here by opening up our faucet.” People travel near and far across the Navajo Nation to access the mission’s water. At over 600 feet deep and with a 500-gallon capacity, NELM’s well is deeper than nearby windmill wells, which can dry up. Because Rock Point is located downstream from abandoned uranium mines, the purity of water from shallow wells is a cause of concern.

Recent tests show that NELM’s well water meets federal standards; now their water is being tested to assure that it also meets Navajo Nation standards. NELM’s Water Project will improve the mission’s water distribution with filtration and chlorination systems, holding tanks and automated water disbursement systems, and a machine to make block ice for home ice boxes.

NELM's Water Project is estimated to cost around $110,000. You can participate through the end of April with your prayers and by marking your donation to Lutheran Church of the Foothills “Region 2 Lent 2025 Appeal” or by donating online via our congregation’s website (select “Community Service” on the giving page). At the end of April, money donated through Lutheran Church of the Foothills for NELM’s Water Project will be sent to Lutheran Disaster Response, marked for the Region 2 Lent 2025 Appeal.

Thank you for giving to this Community Service Emphasis; you are helping to provide clean, safe water for our Navajo siblings.

~ Leslie Johnson and Joan Nolan

NOTE: Parts of this article were taken from “A Foundation of Community in the Navajo Nation,” by John Potter in LivingLutheran, April 4, 2025. Read the entire article online by clicking here. Learn more about NELM’s Water Project at the Community Service Emphasis display table in the narthex.

Get ready to make a difference this spring!

You are invited to one of TIHAN's (Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network) Spring Volunteer Orientations. This is your chance to learn about the incredible volunteer opportunities at TIHAN. Whether you're passionate about direct service, administrative support, or fundraising, they have a spot just for you!

The next volunteer orientation is Saturday, May 10, from 9:30a to 12:00p at their new offices at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, 1200 N. Campbell, Tucson. TIHAN is recruiting for over a dozen volunteer roles, including:

Operations Assistants - help with the front desk and general office support.
Link Specialists - provide vital information, referrals, and support to people living with HIV.
Community Ambassadors - represent TIHAN at events, sharing resources and information with the community.

Advanced registration is required. Contact TIHAN at 520-299-6647 or email volunteering@tihan.org

TIHAN Open House April 30

TIHAN would love to celebrate with you the opening of their new offices at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church. The Open House and ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, from 4:00p to 6:00p, with a brief ceremony and remarks starting at 4:30p.

Please RSVP to operationsmanager@tihan.org or call the TIHAN office at 520-299-6647 if you would like to join this special celebration and social event. Refreshments will be provided.

Thank You, Volunteers! Next Primavera Hot Stew Delivery May 16!

Our next opportunity to provide a hot stew dinner at the Primavera Men's Shelter is May 16. You can participate by signing up on the clipboard on the Activities Counter or calling the church office to indicate that you will prepare the food in your home kitchen, provide side dishes and desserts, or serve the meal at the Shelter.

Thank you for your participation in this ministry! For more information contact Sylvia Strauss-Kolb.

~ Community Service Team

Life Together

Counting on You!

Put your organizational and mathematical skills to good use. The after-service counting team needs volunteers for basic computer data entry and counting. The counting team is down to 3 counters and only 2 computer operators. More team members will ensure the existing counters get a break and are covered in the event of an unforeseen emergency. Training will be provided. Contact Bryan Daum or Gary Anderson if you are interested.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Help Us Keep the Memories

Help us tell our story to the community and preserve our story for future generations through photos. You don't need to be a pro; you only need access to a cell phone or 35mm camera to take photos of events and people so that we can maintain a historical file for marketing and in-house purposes. If you are interested, please contact the office at 520-299-5631 or office@lcftucson.org.

What Part Can You Play in a Changing Church?

Each Sunday (except Easter Sunday) through May 4th from 9:00a to 9:45a in the Activities Room, journey with renowned author and emergent Christian leader Brian McLaren in the video series, "Seeking Aliveness: Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation." Drawing on the themes from his book We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reorientation, and Activation, he will offer up much food for thought for small groups both inside and outside the walls of the church, encouraging us to walk boldly into new forms and possibilities that are before us.

"Beyond the Book" Study for April

For April we are reading Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High (Third Edition) by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.

Crucial Conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation―especially difficult ones―leads to the results you want. Written in an engaging and witty style, it teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than abrasive, how to get back to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up, and it offers powerful skills for mastering high-stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or person.

Our next meeting for the book discussion will be at Beyond Bread (Speedway and Wilmot) on April 28 at 10:30 am to 12:00 pm and again at 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm.

You can purchase the book on Kindle, Audible, or many online retailers or reserve it at the library. Be sure to look for the 3rd edition!

New Thursday Journey Series Begins April 24!

Beginning April 24th, 10:00a, Thursday Journey will start a new series: Loving My Neighbor. This series will explore "Who is my neighbor?" in bold new ways, and how we can love them when the needs of so many people are currently at risk.

Focusing on marginalized or at-risk communities, we will learn how to show up for our neighbors, what their unique challenges are today, and what they may be facing due to the rapidly changing landscape of American policy. As a Reconciling in Christ Church, we welcome all to our community, and in doing so, we invite them to bring their whole selves, their story, their joys, and challenges. Knowing our neighbors' stories is an important part of being able to welcome them to our community.

Our first class will be: What does it mean to be a Reconciling in Christ Church in 2025? The group meets every Thursday from 10:00a to 11:30a in person in the Activities Room at church.

“Babel” at Read & Yak on April 26, 12:00p to 1:30p

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator's Revolution, by award-winning author R. F. Kuang is speculative fiction and is set in a fantastical version of Oxford, England, in the 1830s. Leslie Johnson will lead the “yakking,” which will include a discussion about imperialism and capitalism, student revolutions, and the use of language and translation (all pertinent to our times). Start reading now as the book is 545 pages of entertaining reading (or 22 hours of listening).

If you are looking for great conversation, good company, and an excuse to enjoy reading a good book, then mark your calendars and set aside some reading time. Whether or not you’ve completed reading the book (you’ll miss out on some surprises if you don’t read it to the end), bring your lunch and join us either in person in the Activities Room at church, or online via Zoom. You do not need to be affiliated with Lutheran Church of the Foothills to participate.

Upcoming Reads:

📖 May 24: Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachael Joyce (Fiction)

📖 June 28: Why Fathers Cry at Night – Kwame Alexander (Memoir)

~ Leslie Johnson,

for the Read & Yak Book Discussion Group

"Where Two or More Are Gathered: Flourishing in Relationships" Bible Study with Rev. Brooke Petersen

As we navigate the complexities of modern life, the bonds we form with others provide strength, inspiration, and growth. This summer, delve into a profound exploration of the dynamics of human connection. Rev. Brooke Petersen, author of the Summer 2025 Gather Bible Study, will share tips on leading the 3 sessions of the study and some insights that will enhance the learning experience for everyone!

Hosted by the Women of the ELCA Grand Canyon Synod, this event will be held online via Zoom on Saturday, May 17 from 9:00a to 11:00a. You can join on your own for a $10 fee or gather as a group for $25. Click here to register online.

If you haven't already subscribed to the award-winning Gather magazine, you can do so for a reduced fee of $9.95 for the first year. Each year, you will receive 6 issues in the mail and digital access to the magazine. Go to https://www.gathermagazine.org to subscribe today!

Refugees still need our help

Look for the “Refugee Crisis” display on the Activities Counter at church to learn about the many ways you can help Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (LSS-SW) continue its commitment to help refugees become self-sufficient in their new homes in Tucson and Phoenix. For even more information, visit Refugee Crisis Page — Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest (www.lss-sw.org), or talk with others at LCF who have experience volunteering with their Refugee and Immigration Services.

The term “refugee” is a designation given by the United Nations. A refugee must have a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so. Refugees must meet this strict definition, which does not include those seeking economic opportunity. Refugees undergo extensive screening while awaiting admittance to the United States while they are living in a refugee camp or another country they have fled to. Once accepted, they travel through flight arrangements made by the US government.

The Executive Order “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program” of January 24, 2025, paused refugee resettlement and funding for 90 days, leaving 878 refugees that had been planned to be resettled in Arizona in limbo. There are currently 388 refugees in Arizona within their first 90 days of arrival. With no further support from the federal government, and having to lay off 48 employees in their Refugee and Immigration Services after the stop-work order was issued, LSS-SW is now relying on your generosity to help them keep our government’s commitment to these 388 refugees.

“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

~ Leslie Johnson, member

Community Service Team