KINDLE Commercial

Hey!

Just a quick "commercial" for all you NE District DCEs to consider getting into KINDLE. My "Lay Cluster" met Sunday the 15th after church. What happened? God showed up--big time! One participant was struggling with a whole constellation of stressors, and we all laid hands on the person and prayed. Today in an e-mail I received answers to the prayers and many thanks to the cluster for their support. Sure, this can happen in almost any group setting, but with KINDLE, the participants seem to go deeper, quicker.

If you have any reservations about whether KINDLE can benefit you and your church, I could easily connect you with about a dozen lay people who would gladly give you their testimony!

Jim Haack

Two more retreat pix!

I only wish I had gotten a picture of Bob playing pitch!

Not only a fabulous cook, Andrea proved herself to be a talented photojournalist as well as jr. fire chief at last week's retreat!

April 2007 Retreat

Scotte cooks us all a wonderful dinner. He will be publishing his first cookbook soon - the topic will be "how to cook a spaghetti ball".

Throughout the weekend Vicki and Wade lead us through the book "Listening Hearts"

Craft time with Vicki was also fun. She helped us make a sand garden that represented the DCE Community within Nebraska. Can you see yourself? Look hard, because you are in there.

Tara and Erika cook us all breakfast. Notice the "steam" this is just before they set off the fire alarm.

Jim demonstrates for us what a good DCE he is by completing random evaluation sheets that were provided for our filling out pleasure throughout the weekend.

This may be too late, but...

Hey DCEs, I know this is one of those "11th hour" notices, but you can share this with your congregations and your various groups:
On Saturday, April 21, Beautiful Savior is hosting a seminar on Islam from 9:00 a.m. to 12 noon. The speaker is Rev. Farrukh Khan, recently ordained as an LCMS Pastor, and a former Muslim himself. He comes from POLBO (People of the Book Lutheran Outreach) in Michigan. The seminar is free (except for a freewill offering), and we're really encouraging the public to attend. If your church is like mine, lots of people raise lots of questions about Muslims. Those questions come up a lot in Confirmation and youth Bible classes, even in younger grades.
Bring your youth and adults.
Questions? Contact me at 402-331-7376 or jim@bslcomaha.org.

--Jim Haack

Retreat!

This rock garden came out of our opening meditation on Exodus 18:17-18 and Hebrews 10:24-25. It symbolizes the participants' experience with our DCE community as well as our dreams for the group in the months to come.

The retreat was based on Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community by Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, & Susan M. Ward. "The authors address the challenge of remaining faithful and attentive to God's call and tell how a faith community can be a source of spiritual, psychological, physical, & financial support." (from the jacket blurb)

Our goal was to discuss four short chapters from this book. I think we scratched the surface of two. We may not have reached the goal of finishing the book discussion, but we did use the discussion as a "springboard for issues of accountability and fellowship." (from one of the feedback forms) We had the time to let the discussion flow from theory to practice.

Our mutual lament was for a longer retreat schedule. We discussed the problems of busy schedules and the temptation to trim our time together to create bare bones gatherings. From this retreat, however, a new understanding of the importance of time spent together emerged.

Whether you were at this retreat or not - consider these questions...

• How do you see yourself as receiving support from the Ne. Dist. DCE community?
• How do you see yourself as giving support?
• What kinds of support do you look for?
• What are the dangers of not having support?
• Do you see a distinction between supporting a person and supporting that person's ministry?
• Do you think it is difficult to keep a support group centered in Christ?

Maybe we could continue the discussion here?

Many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to contribute to the success of this retreat! (Especially Tara who took the lead!) As always, this community encourages my faith. And this time of retreat refreshes me.

An introduction

Hi DCE's, I wanted to intro myself as I am fairly new to the "DCE list" and don't want to appear the phantom lurker. I'm serving very part time at First luth in Plattsmouth. I won't appear at any of the monthly gatherings as my full time job is 3ft tall, 3 yrs old and expecting a sister within the next 5-8 weeks. In my previous pre-parental life I served at St.Mark in Brunswick, OH and Good Shepherd, Sherman, IL. I appreciate the peek into DCE issues again and wish all of you God's blessings in your ministry.

To Stacey, congratulations on the birth of your son, He is gorgeous, and YES you will ALWAYS be late from now on. (But these stages don't last very long so enjoy them)

Cindy Good

NYG 2007

Is everybody in the Nebraksa District at the Rosen Plaza? Just wondering if they just decided to put people in hotels by district, and if they did, why did they ask us where we wanted to stay in the first place?

I am going down next week to take pics and map out where our group will be able to eat, which is actually my biggest worry.

Where the heck are we going to eat?!

Scotte

www.scottehansen.org