You can download a copy of the Messenger with graphics, or if you just want to read the text, keep scrolling! The July 2024 Events Calendar at St. James Lutheran Church is below.

All of our community events are posted on our events page, be sure to check them out!

Summer Time Happenings …..

It’s time for a good ballgame!  Come out and  join the team, or just come out to support the St. James Softball Team! This is our best kept secret!  If you are interested in playing, please contact Kyle Smith ([email protected])

Upcoming Games – all games at 6:30 pm

Tuesday 7/2 vs. Freedom Valley @ Freedom Valley
Monday 7/8 vs. Calvary Bible @ Freedom Valley
Tuesday 7/16 vs. Evangelical @ First Baptist
Monday 7/22 vs. Keymar Evangelical @ First Baptist
Tuesday 7/30 vs. Well Spring @ First Baptist
Wednesday 8/7 vs. First Baptist @ First Baptist

Upcoming Summer Youth Events

July 10, 1 -5 p.m.
M.S./ H.S. Paintball

July 27, 3-7:30 p.m.
Family Lake Heritage Party

July 31, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
M.S. / H.S.  Cunningham Falls Hike

Aug. 7, 1-5 p.m.
H.S. Trampoline Park trip

Our Tree 4 Hope Mission Trip Team will soon be traveling to Guatemala.  Trip Team Members include Pete Bender, Sue Currens, Elizabeth DiCampli, Isabella DiCampli, Christina Geib, Gabrielle Geib, Emily Harte, Sharon Kaya, & Chris Waybright.  Please keep them in your prayers as they prepare for and embark on this exciting opportunity for service !

A Message From Pastor Libby

Many of you know that I spend a few weeks every summer at Chautauqua, NY. Chautauqua has brought together the arts, recreation, religion, and education for a nine-week season, and was a formative part of my childhood, young adulthood, and burgeoning interest in theology. This year marks my 21st summer at Chautauqua, and the 20th Fourth of July week spent on the grounds.

Chautauqua’s focus on religion results in denominational housing options. There is the Catholic House, UCC House, Presbyterian House, Episcopal House, (you get the idea). Each house hosts worship on Sunday morning, Tuesday afternoon cookies and punch, and a Thursday evening Vespers service. Each week’s worship services are led by a weekly chaplain, and I will be serving as the weekly chaplain to the Lutheran House this month. The week will be spent in communal living, filled with lectures, classes, and daily worship services led and preached by theologians around the country.

But perhaps my favorite part of the week is the annual Fourth of July Pops Concert at the Amphitheater, directed by Stuart Malina (who his fans, myself included, know exclusively as “Stu”) and featuring the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. Each year ends with a riveting rendition of the 1812 Overture, recognition of retired military (Go Navy!), and the deafening sound of thousands of people releasing paper bag-fashioned cannons as an American flag unfurls. My family gathers in the front section of the choir loft, where we can see the conducting up-close, and bring signs with “USA” and “We Love Stu!” on them. It’s a tradition that started years ago, and the Fourth of July seems incomplete without the concert and all of its pomp and circumstance. In that moment, we all are proud to be American, united together under a single flag.

The crowd moves from the Amphitheatre to Lake Chautauqua, where people gather to watch fireworks in neighboring towns, the colors reflecting off of the lake. Things are quieter, the bell tower playing patriotic tunes, and there’s time to reflect – on the day, on the week, and on the world.

We are lucky to live in a nation where we are free to be ourselves, speak our mind, and practice our faith, thankful for the generations of people who have fought and died to make it so. But despite the day and its patriotism, it is hard to forget that we too live in a world with wars in the Holy Land, Europe, and Sudan, when millions are displaced from their homes, and hundreds of thousands are homeless. How do we grapple with the fact that we are free and spiritually fed, while others suffer at the hands of our fellow human beings?

The state of the world can be overwhelming. It’s hard to find places like Chautauqua that allow us to connect with God, our neighbor, and share a common humanity. Those places, where people can talk freely and disagree but come together in an attempt to learn from each other. In a world that seems divided, may we remember the words of Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

When we find ourselves consumed by the news, by the amount of people suffering, or those cut off from resources, may we remember that God is with us, urging us to care for our neighbor, to make our community a more loving place, where all are housed, fed, and spiritually nourished. 

With Love,
Pastor Libby

Young At Heart: Keeping Up With The Kids
Adam Michael, Director of Youth and Family Ministry

What does it mean to be an Olympic champion? Is it simply a “win at all costs” game or is there more to it than that? 

Those were the questions we posed to the 10 kids, 3 middle schoolers and 4 adults who served at the Third Annual St. James Kid’s Olympics, held for the first time at the United Lutheran Seminary Gettysburg Campus. 

For the first time since we began this tradition at St. James, the inspiration for the Kid’s Olympics will play out in the same summer that it is held. The official Summer Olympics will return to Paris this year from July 26 through Aug. 11. 

These days, we don’t think of athletics as much of a spiritual practice. However, the Olympics were once thought of as such, though not a Christian concept. After all, the original games began by the Greeks, started 500 years before Christ was even born. 

Like most things the Greeks did, their successes were connected to worship of the gods. Athletes would parade into the stadium past a line of religious officials. Prizes, such as a crown of olive leaves, were made from trees in a sacred grove dedicated to Zeus.  Winners were considered “touched by divinity” and gave credit to the patron gods, or higher powers, that blessed them with their abilities.  

As Christianity caught its stride in the fourth Century, Christian Emperor Theodosius I forbade the celebration of pagan cults, which unfortunately included the games.  Nonetheless,  a Jesuit named Pierre de Coubertin was inspired by the games of old, and many centuries later, in 1889, desired to create an assembly of athletes that would meet every four years as a symbol to world peace. Neither country of origin nor religion could disqualify a competitor their chance to shine. Coubertin worked with Thomas Arnold, a Church of England deacon and promoter of “muscular Christianity,” which paired physical strength with religious piety in an effort to create well-rounded, moral and ethical adults.  

Without specific knowledge of Arnold’s stance, the St. James Kid’s Olympics was created with the same purpose. This creative environment is meant to bring out competitors who wish to display their strength, endurance, flexibility and finesse. When we play individual sports, we try to emphasize improvement over beating our friends. When we play team sports, we try to build even teams while promoting fair play. When arguments arise, we ask kids to work it out in a way that would make God proud, and we emphasize protecting our minds and bodies from temptation while still performing our best.  

Regardless of our walk of life, we are called to be leaders in a Christian manner. I am proud of the kids who come out to participate in this event every year, some who began as participants and now are cooperating in the execution of the games. I hope they will lead lives that promote these values long after they have left the youth group. And with any luck, some will come back to participate as leaders to pass along our traditions. 

Adam Michael
Youth and Family Director

Music Notes
Jonathan Noel, Minister of Music

Veritas Caput

The headwater of the mighty Mississippi River is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. I had the privilege of visiting this beautiful lake last summer and learning about the Mississippi watershed at the visitor center there. I was fascinated to learn that the lake is fed by springs. I took great joy, along with many others, in wading in the Mississippi River at the point in which it flowed out of the lake. Here it is a small creek. As it makes its 2340 mile journey to the Gulf of Mexico, it will be fed by more lakes, streams, and rivers becoming one of the world’s great waterways.

Standing at the source of a great river like this was a spiritual experience. I thought of how this could be a metaphor for the church and our relationship to it. We are springs, small and often unseen. As we pour ourselves out in service to others, each one of us doing our small part, together we form a mighty river that becomes a force for good in the world.

But springs do not generate their own water. They in turn must be fed by rain through the endless cycle of evaporation and precipitation. In the same way, we are fed by God through word and sacrament in order that we might become the springs that contribute to the great river of love and grace that our world so desperately needs.

Jonathan Noel

Note: The Ojibwe name for the lake is mashkoozo-zaaga’igan (Elk Lake). In the 19th century, American explorer, Henry Schoolcraft, created the pseudo-Native American name Itasca by combining the Latin phrase veritas caput, meaning “true head.”

Worship Previews

July 6 & 7: Seventh Sunday After Pentecost

Jesus does great deeds of power and gives his disciples authority over demons. Yet none of this power is unilateral; it all must be received by faith. Jesus asks his disciples to go out without money or supplies, so that they will be dependent on how others receive them. When we are sent from the assembly to witness and to heal, we are asked to be vulnerable, to be dependent on the reception of others. The Spirit always operates in the “between”: between Jesus and his Abba, between Jesus and us, between you and me, between us and those to whom we are sent. 

Preacher:       Pastor Andrew Geib
Readings: Ezekiel 2:1-5 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Psalm 123 Mark 6:1-13
Fellowship,  hosted by Property and Prayer Shawl Committees

July 13 & 14: Eighth Sunday After Pentecost
 When Amos reports his vision of God judging Israel for its mistreatment of the poor, he becomes a threat to the power of the priests and the king. John the Baptist also speaks truth to power, and Herod has him killed. In Herod’s fear that Jesus is John returned from the dead, we may hear hope for the oppressed: all the prophets killed through the ages are alive in Jesus. We are called to witness to justice in company with them, and to proclaim God’s saving love.

Preacher:  Pastor Libby Baker-Mikesell
Readings: Amos 7:7-15                        Ephesians 1:3-14
                  Psalm 85:8-13                    Mark 6:14-29

July 20 & 21: Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
Mark’s gospel makes clear how great is the press of the crowd, with its countless needs to be met, on Jesus and his disciples. Yet in today’s gospel Jesus advises his disciples to get away and rest, to take care of themselves. Sometimes we think that when others are in great need we shouldn’t think of ourselves at all; but Jesus also honors the caregivers’ need. We are sent from Christ’s table to care for others and for ourselves.

Preacher: Pastor Andrew Geib
Readings: Jeremiah 23:1-6         Ephesians 2:11-22
                 Psalm 23                     Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

July 27 & 28: Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Today is the first of five Sundays with gospel readings from John 6, the first four of which focus on Jesus as bread of life. Today Jesus feeds thousands of people with five loaves and two fish. What we have, what we bring to Jesus’ table, seems like it is not nearly enough to meet all the needs we see around us. But it is not the adequacy of our supplies or our skills that finally makes the difference: it is the power of Jesus working in the littlest and least to transform this world into the world God desires, a world where all the hungry are satisfied.
 
Preacher:  Pastor Libby Baker-Mikesell
Readings:   2 Kings 4:42-44            Ephesians 3:14-21
                  Psalm 145:10-18           John 6:1-21

Council Corner, June 19 Meeting Highlights

En Bloc Agenda:

* Approval of Minutes from May 15, 2024
* Acceptance of Treasurer’s Report: Church & ELC Financials
* Acceptance of new members: via affirmation of faith– none, via baptism– none
* Motion to deposit $113,200 received from Randy Smith estate into ELCA Growth Fund (Endowment).
En Bloc agenda was adopted unanimously.
New Business:
Election of 2024-25 Council officers:
President: Alan Haynes
Vice President: Mark Withrow
Secretary: Debra Baker

Good for Council – Good for Church – Good for God
* VBS was a huge success with nearly 150 children enrolled. Children from the ELC also participated.
* Community concert with Jonathan Rundman Wednesday, August 14 at 7:00 p.m.
* Youth from St James attended the recent confirmation camp at Nawakwa. Adam and the pastors were also in attendance.
* Thank you to the following members who have completed their terms on council:  Peggy Green, Kyle Smith, Sharon Kaya, & Carol Widerman
Next Meeting: Wednesday, July 17 at 6:30 p.m.

St. James Bookmarks

Looking for a good summer read?  As June’s Pride month observances draw to a close,  we highlight a recent purchase which can be found on our hallway book cart or in section 11 in the library proper. 

“Pride: An inspirational History of the LGBTQ+ Movement” by Stella Caldwell. 
In this  book for young readers, the author examines ground breaking events including historic pushes for equality, the AIDS crisis, and the legalization of same-sex marriages worldwide.

Other LGBTQ+ fiction and non-fiction volumes include “The Savvy Ally” by Jeannie Gainsburg, “Small Town Pride” by Phil Stamper, and “Just Ask” by Sonia Sotomayor. 

The library also contains some recent additions for our adult readership on such topics as anxiety, poverty, homelessness, caste in America, and Christian nationalism.

Thank you to all of our amazing Vacation Bible School volunteers!  What a fun filled and successful week! 
We were able to  share Jesus’ light with 135 children!
There were over 55 high school and adult volunteers from Christ & St. James, that allowed the week to run smoothly.  We couldn’t have done it without you !!

Relay For Life

Relay For Life of Adams County will be held Saturday, August 10th from 5:00-10:00 PM at Oakside Park in Biglerville. Our theme is “CANCER: NOT HERE, NOT THERE, NOT ANYWHERE!” 

There are two teams participating that include members from St. James, “The Miracle Workers” and “Hope-Full Heels.”  Kevin Varish will have his food truck at the event.   Ernie Kranias will be performing at 8:00 pm.   The Luminaria Ceremony is at 9:00 pm. Pastor Andrew will open the ceremony, Shirley Sanders is the Master of Ceremonies, and Shawn Waybrant will be the guest speaker and share his cancer journey.  There will be vendors and other events happening throughout the evening. We invite congregation members to bring your chairs and come out and support this cause as we raise funds and awareness regarding cancer.   Thank you to the members of St. James for your support of this worthwhile event! 

Parish Records

Deaths
           June 6          Shirley DeHaas
           June 6          Charlie Bender
           June 8          Mary Alice Nutter
           June  13       Harry Borger
           June 15        Janet Rice
Baptism
            June 2    Lily Fontaine
            June 2    Mavis Fontaine

50+ Wedding Anniversaries     
            June 15       Tom and Deb Altemose                    50 years
            June 16       Wayne and Sue Hill                          51 Years    
            July 14        Tim and Barbara Braband                51 years
            July 26    Gary and Ann Ratay                          55 years

Ordination Anniversaries
             June 21         Rev. Richard H. Englund                 65 years

             June 21         Rev. Karl J. Mattson                        65 years

Visiting St. James

Office Hours: 

Monday—office closed

Tuesday—Friday, 9:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.

Calling St. James at 717-334-2012

201     Katy Clowney
          Church Administrator
          [email protected] 

202  Julie Albert
          Administrative Coordinator
          [email protected]      

203     Adam Michael, off on Fridays
          Director of Youth & Family Ministry
[email protected] 

205   Pr. Libby Baker-Mikesell, off on Fridays
Associate Pastor
[email protected]

206 Pr. Andrew R. Geib, off on Fridays
Lead Pastor
[email protected] 

207 Jonathan Noel, off on Fridays
Minister of Music
[email protected] 

215 Tom Bender, off on Fridays
Building Superintendent
[email protected]