VBS Highlights

The Directors of our Children and FUSION ministries shared highlights of how we went Above & Beyond this year with Vacation Bible School:

• A student leader bought Bibles for kids in her group who don’t have them
• 441 kids and 209 leaders
• 289 families registered
• 38 families with no church home
• 74 families from other churches
• The number of fusion kiddos here for VBS!! Danielle – can you give exact numbers?
• Over $2600 for Hesed House raised in 4 days!
• Student leaders sharing how VBS is their favorite week of the whole year!
• Shared our décor set (which took months to create) with another church who has their VBS in July and will then share it with another church – so 3 churches get to use it!!
• Some kids who have never heard before that Jesus died on the cross or who Jesus even is!
• Leaders who thought they were ‘helping’ out realizing that God desired this for them personally as much as for the kids in their groups
• 13 FUSION kiddos with one on one buddies
• 1 FUSION kiddo that only stayed three days because he needed a more self-contained/sensory room that will benefit from our new space!! 
• 17 FUSION kiddos that had special needs and we worked with their small group leaders to give them the support they needed. 
• One FUSION kiddo told his mom he wants to come to church at Good Shepherd because he loves it here and made a lot of friends. 
• Two FUSION kiddos who are best friends didn’t even know they went to the same church—until they ran into each other at VBS
• Another group had a kiddo in a wheelchair with a tray—instead of doing group work on the ground, they brought the work up to his level and used his tray so he could see what was going on (no prompting from me—totally the leaders/kids idea!) 
• MANY FUSION parents left with tears in their eyes bc they saw their kids with special needs having an amazing time, being included with their peers, and learning about God’s purpose for their lives.

Workcamp Highlights

Laura Jean (LJ) Martin shared highlights of how we went Above & Beyond with Workcamp this year!

• 85 lives from Good Shepherd changed due to God's unfailing LOVE!
• students received words from God pertaining to their unique purpose in this world
• students openly praying with one another hungry for God's presence
• a parent/leader's perspective was transformed because of his opportunity to serve at Workcamp with his sons
• leaders being thankful for God taking them OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE and growing spiritually and in character this week
• students standing up for each other and speaking life to one another, to residents and other youth groups
• Red Shirt Director (Jody) commented that Good Shepherd's group set a positive tone at the high school and were great examples at the work sites (great work ethic)
• NO HOSPITAL VISITS! thank you Jesus
• God was glorified in and through 60+ projects (every project was finished by Friday)

Greeting from Kenya

This is a special greeting from the children of Cheryl's Children's Home in Nairobi, Kenya.  By going Above & Beyond we are literally reaching and transforming lives on the other side of the globe!

Over 1,000,000 Meals

Good Shepherd played a major role in contributing dollars and people towards this years Feed the Need event. More than 800 Good Shepherd members participated in helping to pack over a MILLION MEALS so that 2748 starving children will have food to eat every day for the next year.  Way to go Above & Beyond!

Multicultural Worship

We had some guest musicians and singers from Honduras help lead worship at our Saturday 5:05 service. Songs were sung in English and Spanish. The leader of the group is Omar (he’s the guy with the beard in the middle). We first met Omar through a mission trip to Honduras. That’s also how Omar met his future wife who was a member of Good Shepherd. Now they are married and serving as missionaries.  Omar and his band led a workshop with the ELCA to promote unity, justice, and multi-cultural awareness in the larger church.

Married People in Full Swing

One of our Above & Beyond goals was to start a marriage ministry. Our new Married People ministry, with its small group, large group, and date night experiences are helping hundreds of people heal divisions in their marriage while drawing closer to God and their spouse.  To learn more about our marriage ministry and how to get involved, visit our Married People page on the website.  You can also connect with us via our Facebook group.

Impact Story: Community Development Center

Be inspired and share your ideas. It is amazing to see how God is touching and transforming lives through the generosity of Good Shepherd. Below is a story about the impact our giving has had with the kids in Bethlehem Church's Community Development Center. The Above and Beyond Missions Team wants to know about your ideas that could lead to visions ABOVE and BEYOND where we have been! Where can we make an impact? What can we do to make a sustainable difference? Or how can your generosity help transform lives? Tell us where your heart is!

 

Impact of Generosity

This Thank You note captures why we encourage our small groups to go beyond and live generously together.  When we give and serve and love together, it really makes a big impact.  Our college small group recently visited with an assisted living community.  How are you living generously with your small group?

Breaking through Barriers

The greatest gift Good Shepherd gave to this family was a challenge to grow in generosity. Now they are seeing generosity transform lives around the world and a few blocks from the church building. That's why we love challenging people to go beyond.

Joy in Generosity

Last weekend, we featured Kali, who started giving financially at a very young age by sponsoring a child in Africa. Her story truly reveals God's call to a generous life and the joy in generosity.  Thanks for inspiring us to go beyond Kali!

 

Transformed by Jesus

Here's a powerful story of the incredible things God can do when his people go beyond! The FUSION special needs ministry brought this family to Good Shepherd. See how that first step into our church transformed their lives.

Blessing Bags

Going beyond can be a lot of fun. 10 families recently gathered together to experience the joy of generosity. Items were donated to make blessing bags for kids at Hesed House. Not only will this be a special Valentines gift, but it will also provide for some basic needs.  To see the fun, watch the video below...

Show Stopper

The ministry we do inside our church building goes way beyond our church building. Here is one example from the FUSION ministry...

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Just wanted to thank you for giving my son the opportunity to work with the Fusion kids when his schedule allows. I wanted to share with you a bit of how those seeds grow outside of Good Shepherd.

My son, Reed, is in the choir at Metea Valley High School. Metea hosted a “Guy’s Sing Night” last night inviting the feeder grade schools and middle schools to sing with the men’s choirs. This is intended to build goodwill, male-bonding and help build interest in the program. All the guys came pouring out after rehearsal for pizza and as usual, my Reed was nowhere to be found. Instead he comes straggling behind chatting with someone who looked like a teacher from a different school. 

As they got closer I realized she is someone I recently met at Church and is the Music teacher at Owen Elementary…Sue Boozel. When I go up to say “hi” she proceeds to “introduce” me to this young man who she says took the initiative to pair up with her little student with special needs and what an unbelievable job he is doing. I, of course, helped her draw the connection that he in fact is my son.

At the concert the little boy refused to go on stage. But Reed confidently waited with the boy in the shadows and got him to come out behind the curtain. Reed stood there with such calm confidence and the boy next to him never flinched. When the music started the boy did perfectly, singing all the songs, clapping and even dancing. Reed by his side calm, protective and confident the whole way.

After the concert the boy’s parents were flooded with emotion, thanking Reed for making this such a wonderful experience for them all. As you know this child now has the chance to consider music as a wonderful asset to his life. Reed is still not sure what he really did except for to be himself. 

Thank you, so much for the ministry you lead and your part in helping him see that being the kindhearted Reed he is, is a huge value to this world and will always be more than enough.

Jayne R.

Neighborly Love

We encourage all of our small groups to serve together. This is a great way to bond as a group and live out our value "generosity is a way of life."  Below is a powerful story about how one of our small groups went beyond to make a big impact in their neighborhood...

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Last spring our small group was doing a study entitled Reckless Faith. We talked about stepping out of our comfort zone and helping others by being the hands and feet of Christ. We wanted to make an impact on someone in our local community. My husband and I knew just the right family. They lived two doors down from us and their yard was overgrown and needed a lot of TLC. They keep to themselves and never engage with anyone in our neighborhood. They also have an adult child with cerebral palsy requiring an electric wheelchair and outside caretakers.

The next day I went for a walk and l prayed. How would we approach them? How would our willingness to help them be received? What if they were offended? But the Holy Spirit tugged on my heart and said 'go'. So I went. I walked right up to the door and knocked. The woman who lived at the house would not come to the door but a caretaker gave me her phone number and said I could call her. I took that as a sign and went right home and called her. We talked for a few minutes and I explained that our small group wanted to come and help them with their lawn. She was hesitant at first and couldnt believe that anyone would want to do that. She had to convince her husband and that took a little more coaxing, but he agreed and we picked a date.

It was a beautiful spring day and members of our small group gathered at our house to talk about the job at hand. Their landscape proved to be in rougher shape than we thought. Small trees needed to be chopped down, shrubs removed, weeds pulled, bushes trimmed, debris hauled to the street and they had sub pump drainage issues. When the woman came home that day she was in awe of her lawn and was amazed that strangers would do this for them. It was a days work for us but for them it was so much more.

We were God's hands and feet that day. We did not preach to them, we did not condemn them for not taking care of their lawn, we reached out to serve them with love and respect.

We hope they will let us come back again this spring so we can shower them with God's love once again.

Wendy E.

Preschool Celebration 01-25-16

This past Sunday we had our Preschool students sing in worship.  The Preschool is an incredible ministry of our church that is helping us go beyond our generation.  Here are a few fun facts about the Preschool along with a really fun video they put together.  Enjoy!

Fun facts:

• 104 students 
• Ages Older 2’s –6 years old 
• 2-5 days a week program with extended day options 
• 19 staff which includes a Spanish teacher and a music teacher 
• Our students represent over 30 churches in the community – great outreach to our community 
• Each month we meet in the sanctuary for worship time with the Pastors 
• Monthly we memorize a bible memory verse and learn the sign language to go with it.

Fun video:

Christmas Canes

Two stories touched my heart this Christmas. Both were connected and both were examples of how people can go beyond to make radical generosity a way of life.

One of the collections we had at Christmastime was a project called "Christmas Canes." We collected aluminum, collapsible walking canes to be given to the people we serve in Honduras, many of whom use brooms or tree branches when they have trouble walking around.

A young girl heard about this project to collect Christmas canes and was inspired to help. So when she went to visit Santa Claus this Christmas, can you guessed what she asked for? You guessed it. She asked Santa for an aluminum cane. The girl did end up getting a cane, which she joyfully donated to our drive.

This story was shared during one of our Christmas Eve services. After the service, a man came up to me. He was using a cane to walk. When he got to me, he paused and held up his cane. "Can you use this?" he asked. Before I could really answer, he handed the cane to me and hobbled off.

I love stories like this, especially at Christmas, because they reflect the radical generosity of our God who has given us so much, including his one and only Son. May we all be inspired this year to go beyond by making radical generosity a way of life. Happy New Year!

Behind the Scenes of Christmas

Many people are going beyond to make Christmas Eve a special celebration of Jesus for all. This is a huge opportunity to reach people beyond our church. I bet you didn't know about this awesome serving team!!! They are scraping wax so everyone can have clean candles for Christmas Eve! Seriously, sooooo many serving teams of unsung and unseen people here at Good Shepherd! Let's take a moment to celebrate them!!!

Beyond Update November 2015

Read an update of how God has taken our church beyond through the generosity of our congregation: UPDATE.

Teen Leaders

Teens can lead the way in our generosity journey. Below our Director of FUSION (special needs ministry) tells about two teens who went beyond to help a family with special needs.

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I have 2 amazing teen leaders—Matt and Sara. They are not members of Good Shepherd, but heard about our program from Sara’s mom. Sara and Matt have been helping with Buddy Break for the past eight months and are two of my most passionate leaders. They arrive early to connect with other leaders, stay late to help clean up, and keep their energy level high and contagious for the entire 3 hours of Buddy Break as they play with the kiddos.

About two months ago, Matt approached me, saying he was interested in babysitting for kids with special needs. Having no experience with kids with special needs before Buddy Break, Matt had grown to love working with them so much, he wanted to use that passion to possibly make some money and serve families. Matt also recognized that their parents rarely had a break and he wanted to be able to provide them a break. I told him I would keep him in mind as I often hear from families that need babysitters.

About a month later, a FUSION family approached me saying they needed help finding childcare for their 2 kids. They would need extensive help for a week and wanted to know if I knew of anyone. I looked over my list of FUSION leaders, asked a couple people who were able to fill some of the hours, but there were still holes. I prayed that God would show me who I could ask… and immediately Matt and Sara came to mind. I contacted Matt and Sara and they were able to take all the hours that were left! They didn’t know what they would be paid, or if they would be paid… They saw a need and with their generous hearts, decided to fill it! Now, this family has 2 students they can call on to watch their kids if needed, knowing their child with special needs and his sibling are in good hands!

Danielle Schaeffer, Director of FUSION

Transforming Students' Lives

Every dollar counts.  The generosity of our church is reaching and transforming lives.  Check out how our Beyond journey is impacting the lives of students through our Student Ministry...

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Since our congregation went to one-fund and no longer charges for Student Ministries registration, the number of students who have registered has increased. Resulting in the following:

• This has allowed us to connect to more students and families with the unfailing love of Jesus. 
• It also encouraged families to register early so we were able to know the number of leaders needed to meet our students' needs. 
• This also allows students to enthusiastically invite their friends and not have the awkward moment of asking them for money to get registered for ministry opportunities at Good Shepherd. 

Through the generosity of Good Shepherd Church we have been able to mentor and lean into student leader development.

• One of our college students spent 7 weeks in Guatemala, will return for 2 more weeks at Christmas and is part of taking a team from his college to serve with him too over Christmas break. Many relationships with young children were developed as he spent part of his time living in the orphanage. He was able to do follow up work checking on the success of the water filters that Good Shepherd had installed. 
• Another college student is spending the year in Berlin being a missionary on college campuses. 
• 5 of our students were accepted through a grueling interview process to be staff for Group Mission trips this past summer. These positions are highly sought after. They spent the summer in various cities in the U. S. assisting teens as part of Week of Hope and Workcamp mission trips that we have been participating in for over 20 years. Their experiences at Good Shepherd led them to this serving opportunity. 
• Good Shepherd was able to hire a summer part-time employee to focus on our college age students who live local and those who return for the summer. Many were able to reconnect with church and relationships here. 
• One other college student spent the summer serving with Greater Europe Mission (GEM). We 
• as a church have supported the Raineri's, missionaries with GEM.

Janice Rubin, Director of Student Ministries