Zion Lutheran Food, Faith and Family

"Food, Faith, and the Family of God" -Excerpt from the 2009 Annual Report...

Our Family Meal

Our family meals continued to grow throughout the 2009 year. We give great thanks to Ione Lang as she stepped down as Meal Coordinator in May 2009. Her dedication and service to this ministry has been invaluable. This fall we welcomed and celebrated as Todd and Kristi Asendorf agreed to step into the role as our new coordinators. What a task they had ahead as fall 2009 began with an explosion of over 300 people being served a wonderful warm meal. Thank you!

Each family food group deserves a round of applause as you continue to feed our bodies and nurture our relationships over the supper table. Each group chooses a meal to serve and organizes the preparation, serving and cleaning up. What a great service to our families who join us for an evening of fellowship and learning. We currently have 11 family groups serving, but could always use more. Come join in the fellowship of preparing a wonderful meal for our family at Zion. Thank you!

Church School

The excitement and energy continued from our family meal into the education hour. We celebrate our continued growth. We began 2009 with around 110 church school students ages 4 to grade 5. By the end of the year we have had 152 students join our church school family. We continue to seek new ways to utilize our space and provide a positive learning environment for our children.

The church school students collected offering throughout the fall for Lutheran Disaster Response of ND. Our kids generously gave their coins each week. We also took a free-will offering at our Christmas Program. We were happy to give LDR $950 for use in ND. The money will provide funds to rebuild many areas of ND affected by floods this past spring.

Our 5-week workshop rotations based on a theme continued throughout the year. This past year we have experienced several stories including “Jesus as a Child,” “I Am Statements of Jesus,” “Creation,” and “Joseph’s Stepping Stones.” The students explored the Lord’s Prayer during the season of Lent and enjoyed the Christmas story from the Star’s perspective. We continued to celebrate each rotation through our Kids’ Sabbath worship. Directly following each 5-week rotation, the students had the opportunity to share with the rest of the Zion family pieces of their rotation everything from skits to songs to memory verses.

Our workshop rotations would not be possible without the dedicated volunteers who guide the children through their teaching as well as just being a part of the journey with them. Each class has continued to have one-three shepherds that remain with that class for the entire year. The workshop leaders/helpers commit to a 5-week rotation in one of the workshops having the opportunity to work with each class once throughout the rotation. I celebrate and thank God for the many volunteers we had throughout the 2009 year—over 40 volunteers have given of their time and talent to share in the students’ journeys.

Day Camp (Vacation Bible School) was again brought to us by the amazing staff of Camp Metigoshe. We held our annual Day Camp the first week in August. The staff shared the theme of “It is finished! So now what?” with the day campers. We celebrated with the over 70 kids in attendance (increase of 25 from the previous year).

Kid's Choir

Attention all kids in grades 5-9! Sherie and Danette would like to sing with you at 6:00 every Wednesday (beginning again in the fall) in the sanctuary. They have found some awesome music to share and invite you to come and join them.