Annual Meeting
The Annual Meeting will take place on January 30 immediately after our worship service and be held both in-person and virtually using Zoom. We will provide all reports and financial information by email, and make copies available that can be picked up from church.
As a reminder, we currently have several open council positions. The open positions are
Youth & Family Ministries, Evangelism, and Fellowship.
Holy Communion Update
For the past several months, we have been receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion every other week. In November, we will switch to a schedule of 1st and 3rd Sundays (and corresponding Saturdays). Additionally, on Sundays, we will be experimenting with a return to a more traditional distribution method (Saturdays will start in January). Thank you for your patience as we continue to refine our process.
Our goal is to return to weekly communion, but we need more volunteers to make this happen – servers will pour wine during the service and offer words of institution; set-up volunteers spend some time before the service setting up the cups and wafers and cleaning up after. If you are able to assist with either or both of these tasks please contact Denise Sanders at . Training will be provided and the more volunteers we have, the less frequently everyone is scheduled.
Youth Gathering 2022
Every three years, 30,000 high school youth and their adult leaders from across the ELCA gather for a week of faith formation known as the ELCA Youth Gathering. The days are spent in interactive learning, worship, Bible study, service, and fellowship. Young people grow in faith and are challenged and inspired to live their faith in their daily lives. The '22 gathering will take place July 24-28 in Minneapolis, MN. Those in grades 8-12 are able to participate. We held an informational meeting in August and nine youth have expressed interest in attending. There will be another informational meeting on Saturday evening November 7th at 5:45 pm. We are planning to hold some youth activities on some Saturday evenings in the future. Please email Pastor Brian with any questions.
The Return of Choir and Handbells
Choir and Handbells will return to rehearsing and participating in worship beginning in September 2021. We will have the same rehearsal times as previously - Wednesday 5:45-6:45 pm for handbells and 7:00-8:00ish for choir.
Returning to music after such a long break will be a challenge. Music is similar to exercise. If you take more than a year off, you can reasonably expect to be weaker. That’s OK! We are all in the same boat, probably feeling a little self-conscious about our voices and abilities. We will be starting very slowly and building from there. It will be a huge blessing to finally be able to make a joyful (regardless of musical quality) to the Lord in person together again!
Now is a great time for new members to join! If you are interested in trying either group (or both), please contact Tabitha at or text or call 708-804-0300.
Rehearsals and services will be conducted with current CDC guidelines in place. These guidelines may change if the situation warrants it. Currently, SSM is a mask-friendly church. Unvaccinated individuals are expected to wear masks. Vaccinated individuals may choose to wear or not wear masks. Everyone is asked to please refrain from asking others about their vaccination status.
