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Phil —  May 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

Fruit of the Spirit

It is an exciting time to be a part of Good Shepherd. Good things are happening. There is a spirit of joy that is being experienced. A new day is dawning.

Over the last month I have had the opportunity to share with you a new vision for the future. It is to KNOW Jesus, GROW as his followers, and GO out as missionaries into the world. We had the opportunity to explore each of the three key words in more depth during the first three weekends in May.

If you missed any of these messages you can find them on our brand new website which also launched in May at gs4nj.org. The meaning behind gs4nj is that Good Shepherd exists for the community around us. We are not here for ourselves, but we exist to GO and share the love and compassion of Jesus with those around us. So make sure to check us out online at gs4nj.org (also make sure to check out the updated Facebook page at facebook.com/gs4nj).

In the coming weeks we will be launching a new weekly eNewsletter. If your email is on file with us, you will be receiving an email inviting you to subscribe to this newsletter. But to ensure that you don’t miss the email, you can visit the church website at anytime and sign up directly on the homepage. You can expect these weekly emails to start arriving sometime in June.

We are looking forward to the celebrations of Confirmations, Father’s Day and Graduations in June. We will also be starting a new message series on the Fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22–23. We will look at what each of the Fruit of the Spirit are and how they are produced in our lives. The schedule is as follows:

  • June 2: Love Sunday
  • June 9: Joy Sunday
  • June 16: Peace Sunday
  • June 23: Patience Sunday
  • June 30: Kindness Sunday
  • July 7: Goodness Sunday
  • July 14: Faithfulness Sunday
  • July 21: Gentleness Sunday
  • July 28: Surrendered Sunday

Jesus says in John 15:5 that if we abide in him we will bear much fruit. We are not talking about the fruit grown in orchards here. It is a fruit much which is much more precious. Inevitably we will consider if we are producing this fruit in our lives and why it may be lacking at times.

If you are being encouraged by what you see and hear at Good Shepherd, consider who else might invite. Our desire is for more and more people to come to KNOW Jesus, GROW as his followers, and GO as missionaries into the world. It is an incredible experience to be a part of something that is bigger than any one of us as individuals. If you have been away for awhile, it is a great time to come back. We would love for you to join us for the adventure.

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Good Shepherd Greeting

Phil —  April 27, 2013 — Leave a comment

Hello Good Shepherd! By the time you receive this newsletter I may very well have arrived in New Jersey. After so many months of having gone through the call process, it is good to finally be here. There are a couple things I want to share.

1) For all of you who have volunteered to host me for dinner, I want to say thank you for your hospitality and generosity. It is truly a blessing. Barbara and I really wanted to come out together as a family, but we felt it was important for Abby to finish the school year in Illinois which ends at the end of May. We should all be reunited here as a family in the first week of June. I want to apologize in advance that my availability may be somewhat limited in the month of May as I will be traveling back and forth from New Jersey and Illinois so I can spend some time with my family.

2) While it may take some time to get to know everyone, I want to encourage you to introduce yourself to me. Also, I ask for your patience as I start to put names with faces. But please make an effort to reach out to me. I would love to connect. If you are a Facebook user, I would love to be your friend. You can find me at Facebook.com/philressler. If you are not into the Facebook thing, that is more than ok, my email is phil@gs4nj.org. Once we establish a New Jersey phone number we will make that available for you as well.

3) I want to invite you to worship on May 5, 12, and 19. Over these three Sundays I will be teaching a 3 week message series entitled Know, Grow, Go. In these messages I will be unveiling a 3-part vision for the future of Good Shepherd and the work God has prepared for us in New Jersey and beyond. These three Sundays will serve as an invitation for you to come and join me in the adventure.

4) My installation will be on May 5 at 3pm. This is a celebration not just for me, but for our whole church. In so many ways it is a new start and a new beginning. God is all about new starts. That is why he sent us Jesus so we might have a new start with him. It is going to be a joyous occasion. And how appropriate will it be to celebrate with a Mexican dinner on Cinco De Mayo. If you plan to attend (and I hope you are), don’t forget to RSVP the church office at 732-679-8883.

That is all for now, but there will be much more to come.

In Jesus, Pastor Phil

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Farewell

Phil —  April 24, 2013 — 2 Comments

Thanks everyone from Lord of Life for the great send off last Sunday. I go with a holy confidence thanks to your encouragement and prayers. There is a big challenge before me, but you have helped me grow to a point where I believe with God’s help that I am ready for this.

I would love to stay in touch with you and covet your continued support and prayers. If you wold like to continue to receive these emails, you will need to sign up for a new mailing list. You can sign up for the new mailing list on my blog at philressler.com/mailing-list. After you sign up for the mailing list, you will receive a confirmation email from which you will need to confirm you indeed want to receive the emails.

If you are ever in the New Jersey or New York City area we would love to see you. Please come visit. And don’t discount the possibility that God could be so leading you to relocate to another part of the country to serve him. We would love to have you join us in our work out East. There is a huge mission field in the Northeast United States.

Check out my farewell sermon on Lord of Life’s website. In this final message I share a few lessons learned over the years.

So we have come to an end with this final email #267. I have been honored to serve as your pastor and glad to call you friends.

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From Marathon to Maranatha

Phil —  April 16, 2013 — Leave a comment

Boston Marathon Bombing

When I first heard the news of two explosions at the Boston Marathon, my first thought was I hoped people were safe. My second thought was I hoped this was not another terrorist attack. Unfortunately, neither hope came to pass. In the aftermath it seems many people were injured and a few died. And this was no accident, but a calculated and planned perpetuation of evil in this world.

This comes as no surprise. We are here again. Evil is real, alive, and well. There is so much that is messed up in this world. Today is a day we grieve. We grieve for the families of those who died. We grieve for those injured. We grieve for the runners whose day of triumph became a day of tragedy.

Most importantly in all this, we grieve our sin. These tragedies are the result of sin in this world. It is because we have not lived as God intended us to live. It is easy to point out the sin of others, especially sin that is so grievous. But when we are so busy pointing the finger, it becomes easy to ignore our own sin that desperately needs to be dealt with. We all have a role in this.

This terrible event happened during a marathon. It got me thinking of an Aramaic word that sounds very similar. It is “maranatha.” It means, “Lord come.” This word is used once in the Scripture in 1 Corinthians 16:22. The Apostle Paul writes, “Our Lord come.” Indeed that is the prayer we pray today. We pray that Jesus would soon come and make right what is wrong. That is our hope. That is our faith.

In the meantime we live as his agents of light. This horrific event is a reminder once again that our role is to shine the light in the darkness and to bring hope where there is hurt. And we are taking action as a church.

We got word late yesterday that the Comfort Dogs will be mobilizing and will be on their way to Boston. Please pray for their journey and mission of mercy to those who have been affected by this tragedy.

Here is a part of the email I received from Lutheran Church Charities:

Tim Hetzner, President of Lutheran Church Charities, has been in contact with the New England District President, Rev. Tim Yeadon. We have an LCMS church three blocks from today’s bombings in Boston, First Lutheran Church of Boston, Rev. Ingo R. Dutzmann.

LCC K–9 Comfort Dogs have been invited in to serve those affected by today’s tragic event. LCC Comfort Dogs Addie and Maggie (pictured), serving Newtown, Connecticut and Sandy Hook Elementary School, are ready to deploy as soon as the situation allows. Other LCC K–9 Comfort Dogs will follow.

If you are interested in helping the Comfort Dogs get to Boston, you can support them by going to LCC’s website. It is lutheranchurchcharities.org.

Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

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Matters of Transition

Phil —  April 11, 2013 — 1 Comment

Barbara and I are glad to be back home after spending the last week in Hawaii. Everything there is so beautiful. It was a daily reminder of just how wonderful our God truly is to create a place like that. While we loved our time in Hawaii, we really did miss everyone back home.

This weekend at Lord of Life will be a great celebration. We have 4 children who will be brought to the waters of Holy Baptism. To go along with that there are 19 young people who are stepping forward to confirm the faith that they were baptized into by their parents. There is no doubt the 10am worship will be packed so make sure to arrive early to get a seat for this awesome event.

The following Sunday, April 21, will be my last Sunday as Pastor of Lord of Life. The last 9 years have been a real blessing and there are so many memories. We are grateful for everyone at Lord of Life and everything we have experienced. So often I feel like I was given so much more than I have ever gave.

Lord of Life is a great church. It is a generous church. It is a faithful church. It is a church that is not confined to tradition. And maybe the thing I appreciate so much about Lord of Life is that it has such a heart for the mission of God. Over the years it is amazing to think about how much has been accomplished with God through our efforts and that of our mission partners.

Because of Lord of Life there are children in this world who have been fed and given an education who would not have otherwise been given such. Because of Lord of Life there are people who are no longer living in addiction that haunted them for years. Because of Lord of Life there are children who had been enslaved in prostitution who are now free. Because of Lord of Life new churches have been built and planted around the globe. Because of Lord of Life school children grieving the death of the classmates in Newtown, Connecticut are given hope. Because of Lord of Life there are many who have had their lives transformed here and this earth and also for eternity. The list could go on.

While this is the end of a chapter there is so much more to the story to be written. I have been blessed to have been a part of it.

Some of you have asked about the status of my weekly emails and if I will be continuing them after I leave. The answer is yes and no. I will be sending two more emails from this distribution list. However, next week I will be unveiling a new opportunity to sign up for a new weekly mailing list. I will make sure to send you a link to sign up for that list at that time.

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Stuck in a Funk Book Review

Phil —  March 31, 2013 — 1 Comment

Stuck in a Funk Book

In a few weeks I will be moving on to New Jersey. I will be starting out as the new pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd. Good Shepherd has seen a period of decline and stagnation over the past few years. That was why Stuck in a Funk written by Tony Morgan caught my attention.

I appreciated the way Tony challenges you to take a good hard look at your situation and to ask the hard questions. I believe too many of us bury our heads in sand and ignore reality. The church is in decline and that decline can only go on so long. It is easy to pass the blame for the decline, but passing the blame is not going to change anything. It is time we take ownership.

The book is an easy read. The chapters are short and more like blog posts. You could take each chapter as an independent study of its own.

A word of warning is that this book alone is not going to get your church unstuck. Obviously, God is needed for that, but this book serves as starting point. It will help you to identify some of the sticking points you might have. It is a tool that can be used to engage your leadership in discussion and to challenge outdated methods and strategies.

Once the sticking points are identified is when the real work begins that will require additional resources. There were many chapters in this book where I was left wanting for more. But I don’t believe that the intention of this book was to give you all the answers. Rather it was to help you ask the right questions.

Below are 7 take-a-ways I noted from the book:

A clear vision that is properly communicated will also repel people … clarifying your vision will help some people determine they don’t want to be a part of your cause.

Leaders choose between innovation and control. You can’t have both.

When we make ministry decisions to keep people happy we end up with churches full of happy Christians, but churches that have stopped growing.

You need metrics and heart change stories together. Metrics alone can mask an unhealthy organization where there is no stories of life change. Stories of life change can also mask an unhealthy organization that the numbers don’t support.

Your message has the potential to shift thinking. Your systems have the potential to shift behaviors.

It’s possible to do the work of God without doing the work God has called you to do.

It’s easier to say “yes” to everything. The problem is that without filtering communications there is no way show what is most important and that leads to confusion for those who are trying to figure out their next step. Make the next step clear without offering too many options.

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