Easter Egg Hunt!

Each year St. Mark hosts an Easter Egg hunt with special activities for all young children. This is a great event to invite your neighbors or your grandchildren to! It’s fun, non-threatening, and gets the family out of the house.

The event will take place RAIN OR SHINE (events will be moved indoors if the weather does not cooperate.)

Date:  Saturday April 3, 2010
Time:  9:30 am
Place: St. Mark Lutheran

See you there!

60th Anniversary & Swine Flu (Yes, We're Still Celebrating!)

Hi, this is Pastor Heitshusen at St. Mark Lutheran some important information as well as a great reminder.

In response to the concerns of some regarding the swine flu, the administration of St. Mark continues to monitor and receive updates from the City, the County, the Center for Disease Control, as well as from the District and Synodical offices of the LCMS and other school districts. At this time St. Mark Lutheran Church and School are continuing with the majority of their scheduled activities. Any cancellations would be announced by email and telephone.

We encourage families to take common sense measures to prevent contracting or spreading this flu, just like any other, but at the same time, be ready to respond to needs in our congregation and our community as we proclaim God’s protection and love boldly for all people in Jesus Christ through our words and deeds. We know that God is our refuge and strength and will see us through this as in all things. Because the tomb is empty, we need fear nothing!

I would also like to remind you about the exciting activities this weekend.

This Sunday, May 3, St. Mark will officially celebrate 60 years as an instrument of God’s grace and mercy in the Spring Branch area.

We will have one combined worship service at 10:00 a.m. in the sanctuary with the celebration of Holy Communion. There will be no Sunday school or Bible classes this week.

Following the service there will be a BBQ lunch for everyone (freewill offering). There will be water games for the kids, so bring swim suits, towels, and sunscreen. There will be games for the adults as well, including cards and dominos. (You can bring your own, too, if you’d like!)
We are asking that you please bring your own lawn chairs for the picnic and games.
This celebration will take place RAIN OR SHINE! If weather does not permit us to be outside, we have indoor contingencies in place.

This is a free event and no reservations are needed, so come and celebrate this wonderful time as a family of God here at St. Mark!

See you then and may God bless your day!

2819 Club -- Categorized Results

We took three months (and one Sunday) to pray and seek the Lord's will through The 2819 Club, shared the raw data results of the responses, and now those results have been subsequently been categorized. The results are in a PDF file with it's link below (and also through the title of this post).

Our next step is taking these leadings and focusing on the concretes of what we are to do and how we will go about achieving those goals.

God bless,
Pastor Scott

http://stmarkhouston.org/documents/20080908--2918_Club_Response_Data--Categorized.pdf

2819 Club -- Raw Data Results

From May through July several people met for 19 minutes on Sunday morning to ask what the Lord wanted the people of St. Mark to do to touch people with the love of Jesus Christ.

That question was also asked in worship at both services on Sunday, July 27.

The following links to a rather large document which contains the raw answers that basic question. The only editing that has taken place is for style, mistypes, and spelling, and other minor aspects. The responses themselves remain unchanged.

From here, we will go through these results in more detail, categorizing and summarizing them into like areas and fields. Following that, we will prioritizes the goals and the means by which we will reach them by God's grace.

In His service and yours,
Pastor Scott

http://stmarkhouston.org/documents/20080728--2819_Club--RESPONSES--COMPLETED.pdf

Friends of Christ

Friends of Christ

As I prayed this morning, God reminded me that He is my best Friend. He is always there when I need someone to talk to. He is always there when I need advice. He is always happy for me and with me, when something good happens to me. He "calls" me just to talk to me, to see how I am doing. Not for any special reason, just to see how I am. He gently tells me when I am doing something wrong, yet, He never condemns me. He is oh so understanding when I inadvertently say something wrong; He knows my intent was not to hurt Him, for He knows my heart, He knows that I too am His friend.

In today's world, in our community, in our lives, we need friends. We need those relationships that are caring and always there. We need to know that someone is thinking of us and praying for us. We need to know that someone will be happy for us when we are happy, sad when we are sad, there in times of trouble and need. Today, I believe the Lord is leading me and St. Mark to be a friend to our community. How, I'm not sure. But the Lord brought to mind the idea of the mall that Pastor Scott discussed. Maybe, we could set up a kiosk and be Friends of Christ to the shoppers.

As I finished my prayer time this morning, I asked the Lord to convict me today and to affirm this idea of friendship. After prayers, I ate breakfast, watching the news. As I began to do my chores, I turned the channel to the XM station, "The Message" to listen to Christian Music. One of my favorite songs was on, at my favorite chorus line:

"I just want to feel your presence again,
I'm down on my knees in need of a friend
And I find you waiting there for me."

Talk about affirmation. I finished listening to this wonderful song, by DecembeRadio "Find You Waiting". Then I quickly came to put these thoughts down to share with you, my Friends in Christ. I really believe that we have in our community a lot of lonely people, who just need a friend. I believe that, whether they consciously know or not, they truly "want to feel Your presence again". The words of this song are powerful and I have many times wanted to feel His presence again, and I have often been down on my knees in need of a friend, and I always find Him waiting there for me.

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you today. Please pray with me to see if indeed this is how the Lord wants St. Mark to serve our community, and pray that He show us how to be a Friend of Christ to others.

Blessings,
Jimmie Sue Pratt
06/11/08