Weekly Update from the President

March 22, 2007

Greetings to you, my brothers in Christ! I hope you all have had a good week. I have been busy taking care of a few things since the last update. I am amazed at how much there is to do. Anyway let me get on with sharing what I have been doing.

First, I have been calling the members of the board to see what improvements we could make in the assembly. The only real thing I have heard so far is that one group liked the year we worked with Habitat for Humanity in Seguin and thought that maybe having a couple of swings to put together would be something that people would like to do. I have to agree that this can be a good way of getting the men to attend as what man doesn’t like to play with power tools? I also know it is a great way to get men to bond and improve relationships with one another. When we were talking about this I recalled how the LMM group at Beitel grew closer while they were putting the swings together we made for the assembly. They all enjoyed the Saturday they spent with one another doing a man’s type of activity and learned a little bit more about each other. So I will be sure that this activity goes on the list of ideas that we will discuss at the Synod Board Annual Retreat in April.

I also spoke with Ron Ortenstone in the Rio Grande Conference, he attends Our Savior in McAllen, and their LMM group invited a member from Trinity Lutheran in Mission to come to a meeting and learn a little bit more about LMM. Well, it seems that he was very impressed with what he saw. Way to go Our Savior LMM! He really liked the Master Builders Bible and would like some for the men in his congregation. It so happens that I have six Bibles in my garage which I am going to send to Trinity. I am also going to ask Ron to keep working with them to get things going.

It is confirmed that we are going to build 2 swings at the SWT Synod Assembly. The people at the hotel where the assembly is taking place are going to give us space in the courtyard to do our building. They are also going to give us an 8 foot table inside where we can put up our display and pass out crosses from Charlie’s Sawdust Factory, tri-folds on the Church Wide LMM and if ready tri-folds on the Southwestern Texas Synod Lutheran Men in Mission. So we are planning on making our presence known and showing off some of the good things we do. If you have nothing to do on the weekend of May 19 and 20 and would like to help you are more then welcome to come and join Charlie and me. Just send me an e-mail or give me a call to let me know. My e-mail address and my phone number are at the bottom of this message.

I have been working with Base Huston, Rodger Johnson and Frank Pennington on some ideas for the Century Club. Base put together a half page document explaining the ministry of the Century Club, as well as a half page Century Club application. I took that and developed it into a bulletin insert and passed it on to Rodger and Frank. Rodger, without prompting, put some graphics on it to make the insert more eye-catching. Then when I received it back from him I passed it on to all of the Board Members and asked them to take it to their church council and get approval to have it reproduced and inserted into their bulletins. I also asked that they get approval to present a Temple Talk on the Century Club ministry on the day the insert is placed in the bulletin. Base, volunteering to help out again, is scheduled to do his presentation this coming weekend. He has agreed to send me the notes that he uses so we can share them with the Board and other SWT Synod LMM members. I plan to place them on the web site. Rodger has also agreed to develop a color insert and an 8.5 X 11 sign for posting in your church. Once we have those I will ask Jesse to send a copy of the sign, the insert, and Base’s notes from his Temple Talk to each member who attended the assembly. I will prepare a cover letter for the package asking the member to get permission to do a Temple Talk and have the bulletin insert reproduced and placed in the bulletin the week he does the temple talk. Hopefully this will get more men interested in this ministry and we will get more gifts donated to this very worthwhile ministry.

I have also been talking with Frank and he is going to go shopping around to see what kind of deal we can find to have a Synodical LMM Tri-fold printed up. It is a good tool that can be used to explain to men what our ministry is all about. If we can get a decent price and get the boards approval to get them printed we will send them to each of the congregations to pass out to the men. Maybe this way we will reach someone who has an interest in leading men to Christ and we will get some more groups up and running.

I talked with Pastor Eckert and he is going to put together a quarterly Newsletter for all the congregations. I am going to supply him with my goals for the year and some other info for him to include in the first newsletter. This is my attempt at keeping everyone informed of what our LMM are doing. I am well aware that not everyone has a computer so this way I feel like we are getting the word out to everyone by using multiple ways of communicating.

Last night I sent some pictures that Leroy DeHaven took at the assembly and a few brief lines on each area of the assembly to John Dellis for publication in The Vista. John had informed me that Karl has already supplied him with an article on the Century Club for publishing in the Vista. So it looks like they will both be run in the Vista next month. I think this is another great way to get the word out and plan to use it as often as possible.

Well that kind of sums up my activities since last week. Hopefully these notes are helpful to you. I also publish this on our website in an effort to share with everyone what I am doing. I feel I owe it to keep everyone informed.

I hope you all have a blessed week. If you need to contact me you can do it by calling me at (210) 347-6338 (my cell phone which I always have with me) or e-mailing me at dhickey1@satx.rr.com

Talk with you again next week. God Bless!

Dennis