Mission Jamaica Won!

by Steve Peterson

Posted September 2022

We had a great Zion golf outing on Monday, August 29. God again blessed our annual golf outing with a beautiful summer day. We had a total of 56 golfers enjoying the day while raising funds in support of our Mission Jamaica partner. The 1st place winners of the golf scramble were a foursome of Cliff & Andy Eng, Rod Erickson, and Andy Tscholl. An interesting note was shared by Cliff Eng of the winning team. Cliff is from Cokato and has lived there for most of his adult life, but he grew up in Buffalo on a family farm. His family farm was the land that our church is now built upon.

The real winner is Mission Jamaica. A total of $4,645 was raised to help purchase building materials for a small house in Jamaica, which will be built for a family in great need of a better place to call home.

A little background on Mission Jamaica. Mission Jamaica provides various types of onsite support in many ways. Basic health exams and care is provided to the Jamaican people by teams of U.S. doctors, nurses, and laypeople that travel to Jamaica at their own expense and set up day clinics to examine and treat individuals in need of medical attention. Some volunteers can provide various types of help and support at an orphanage, while others provide labor to build one-room homes for Jamaicans who require this type of support. Through Mission Jamaica’s guidance churches around the country are encouraged to put together teams of individuals that travel to Jamaica to support these various ministries. Over the years Zion Lutheran has sent many of these teams to Jamaica. We are looking forward to sending more teams in the future.

Through our Zion Global Mission committee, we provide support to three primary mission partners: Mission Jamaica, All Kids Can Learn International, & Redeemer Lutheran Church. Each year the committee identifies a special need for one or more of the mission partners that the golf outing will support. Through the generous support of the golfers and the sponsors that help us with costs, we can provide financial support for our partners. God has truly provided us all with so much as we are all blessed to live in such a prosperous area. He calls us to share our gifts with others. Support of our mission partners is a wonderful blessing to us from God. Thank you.

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9th Grade Lock-in 2022

From the evening hours of October 7, well into the morning hours of October 8, our awesome Zion ninth graders…

Fall 2022 at Zion!

Our mission is to partner with families for faith formation and connection. We are always looking for ways to connect with you and to be helpful to families as they seek to raise their children in the faith. There is nothing like fall in Minnesota! But, there is also nothing like the busyness that accompanies it. Registrations, new schedules, new routines, new forms to fill out and keep track of, new school supplies to find and purchase, and new anxieties to calm. We started asking: what if the church found a way to curb some of that, instead of participating in it?

We started asking parents: “Would it be helpful if we moved the start of Sunday School and Confirmation to October?” And, overwhelmingly, parents told us that would be AWESOME and helpful. So, Sunday School (both at 8:30 & 10:30 this year!) will begin Sunday, October 2nd, and Confirmation will begin Wednesday, October 5th.

September will be focused on connecting your family to the joy of Sabbath. We hope you will be connecting back to worship if you’ve taken some time away. To help you focus on Sabbath and worship this Fall, the 10:30am outdoor worship service is continuing into September. Children love the chance to dance, run, and worship under the trees, and Zion has the perfect set-up. It is casual, low-key, a little bit shorter, and filled with music. Bring chairs or a blanket and worship outside the first two Sundays in September. Then, be ready for Z-Fest on the 18th! Food trucks! Games! Fun!

Each Sunday in September will have extra special ways of connecting with children & youth in worship (beyond our ever-popular children’s sermon time. Enjoy the breather and grace this new start date will provide and connect with friends old and new at worship this September. After all, God has commanded Sabbath rest, because we need it!

Choirs & Bells Sunday School Confirmation