Vacation Bible School 2022

Planning is underway for our Vacation Bible School! Here are the basics…

• Wednesday August 10th, Thursday August 11th, Friday August 12th

• 9:00am until 11:30am

• At St. Paul Clintonville (31 N Park Street)

• This event will be for kids PreK-8th grade

• Each day will feature different activities, including games with frisbees, soccer, and kickball

• The cost is $5 per participant (max of $20 per family)

• We ask that you register by August 1st to help us prepare for everyone

We are extremely excited for this fun event and cannot wait for it! To find out all the details and to register, go the vbs page on our website: stpaulclintonville.com/vbs

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Devotion: An Age

What qualifies as an age? We us the word “age” to describe many things. We grow in age every day, but we celebrate aging one year on our birthday. Periods of history have been described as an age. These ages go on for hundreds or thousands of years. The Bronze Age, for example, is said to have lasted 3300BC to 1200BC. Because we live in time and space, we use ages to help us track time and put things into neat, little categories. In a roundabout way of speaking, God set these ages up at creation. He created day and night, the sun and the stars to help us keep track of time. He gave us the ability to track ages of time based on the creation he made for us to use. For God, '“ages” don’t mean the same thing. He lives outside of time. An age to us is the blink of an eye to him. He has been since before time existed. He will be long after time ends.

Does the thought of ending ages make you feel anxious? When I think about it, I would be lying if I said I didn’t. We have been given a finite amount of time on this earth. Every year seems to go by faster and faster and we feel less and less in control.

While we just celebrated the ascension of our Savior, he has not abandoned us here to live out our “age”. He is with us. Jesus doesn’t need to be here physically for him to be with us. He is with us in his word and sacraments, He is in control of all things and moves heaven and earth to take care of us every day. He is with us always and will continue to be until every age ends when he comes again. When that day comes, there will be no need to worry about that age ending. We will enjoy the perfect age of heaven with our God who loves us and will always be with us.

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”

Matthew 28:20

Thank You Sunday School Teachers

The Sunday School year is over and it is a great time to look back and say “Thank You”. Thank you Sunday School teachers for your consistent hard work, for giving your time, and for week after week teaching the Gospel joy to the children! We know it took a lot of time and effort over the last nine months and we are grateful that you were willing to take on this challenge. Thank you!

Area Ascension Service 2022

Join your voices with ours and with our fellow friends in faith from around the area! This year's Ascension Service will take place Thursday, May 26th at Grace Sugar Bush. The service and celebration of our risen and ascended Lord begin at 6:30pm. Our choir will join other singers in a special anthem.

Address

E9680 Church St.

New London, WI 54961

To get to Sugar Bush from Clintonville

Go south on US Hwy 45, turn left onto Cty. WW, take next left onto Church St.

Thank You Clintonville

Thank you Clintonville for your support this year during our Rummage Sale and Grill Out. This year it was great! With your help, with your purchases, and with your donations we have raised a total of $775! That is a LOT of money. This year we decided to give the money raised from this event to the Clintonville Food Pantry. In these challenging times, it is great to know that we can help others who need the basics.

Thank you to everyone who donated items this year. Thank you to everyone who donated time this year. Thank you to this church family, who through the Evangelism budget, paid for the food we sold to help maximize our gift to the Clintonville Food Pantry.

Devotion: Feed My Sheep

We made it through another Holy Week and Easter. We spend weeks preparing our hearts and minds for it and in a matter of four days, it’s over. Service after service go by. Somber songs turn into joyful praises. The cross that held our Savior is bare and the tomb that encased him is empty. Christ is risen, just as he said! Alleluia!

While the Easter season is all but over; known as Low Sunday, the Sunday after Easter tends to show a decrease in church attendance. Where is the joy of the empty tomb? Not surprisingly, this happens all over the world. People are just “churched” out. I’m not saying this to guilt trip anyone. Many pastors tend to take the week off after Easter as well. “Low Sunday” is also given its name because the high festival of Easter has a time time being topped the next week, as one can imagine.

To combat this “lull” we celebrated Evangelism Sunday. We took the news of the risen Savior and the empty tomb and thought, “What can we do with this good news?” We can share it! We have the most amazing gift of all and we have been given a task by the Lord to “Feed my lambs.” Jesus first spoke this to Peter. It seems that at times Peter had a problem focusing on the task at hand. His arrogance often got in the way of him seeing the bigger picture of the kingdom. Jesus even asked Peter if he loved him three times to make sure he understood what he would be facing in the future. This goes to show how well Jesus knew his disciples, and how well he knows us. What does our future hold? It’s hard to say. What we do know is that Jesus holds our future and the future of his kingdom in the palm of his hand. Where can we go to be assured of this when the world seems to be out to get us? The house of God. As summer approaches and the non-festival half of the church year may seem “low” and boring, that is where we learn what we are to do with the amazing gospel we have been given. Allow Jesus to ask you the same question he asked Peter, “Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

From Pastor Rothfuss, Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 3, May 2022

Holy Week 2022

If you really want to know what the true Christian faith is, visit us this Holy Week. We are at the climax of our yearly journey to the cross, the final sacrifice. Come and see who Jesus Christ truly is. Come learn from him. Come see the painful weight of your sin and come rejoice in the victory we could never win. Holy week and the time around it gives us an emotional rollercoaster that teach us about the fullness of God’s love. Join us in person at 31 N Park Street in Clintonville, WI or join us on our Facebook and Youtube pages during these worship opportunities or after.

Palm Sunday

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Service at 9am

Sunday School and Bible Study to follow

The appointed time draws near when Christ, true God and true man, would be the Sacrifice that makes us right with God. Come, and join in with those early worshipers as they praised the Lamb of God!

Maundy Thursday

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Service of the Servant at 6:30pm

Join us as we meditate on Christ, the true servant of all. We see him commemorate the Passover from Moses day. In that Passover feast we see a picture of what Christ himself would do. He is our Passover Lamb, the final sacrifice. He came not to rule this world, but to serve.

Good Friday

Friday, April 15,2022

Service at the Cross 1:30pm

Come mediate on the Sacrifice of Ages, Christ suffered and died. Those words seem so light compared to the reality of it. He suffered physically, yes, but he himself bore the sin of the world. He, Christ was forsaken by God. Jesus died to rescue you.

Good Friday Evening

Friday, April 15,2022

Service of Darkness, 6:30pm

Come reflect on the weight of your sin. On the cross, Jesus, the pure and holy Lamb of God, was forsaken by God. He took our punishment for us, he took the immense punishment for the whole world. Join us as we meditate on the last words of the dying Savior.

The High Festival of Easter

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Morning at the Tomb Worship at 6:30am

This is our High Festival Day! Come to this early service as we sing hymns and hear the blessed promises of God. Celebrate Christ victory, which is ours by his grace. This service will be completely different than our 9am service.

Easter Breakfast Social

This is our Festival day, start it off with the Word and then follow that up with a feast! From around 7:15am until 8:45am there will be a free breakfast potluck in the church basement. Make this day even more of a celebration with some great food! You are welcome to come and join us.

The High Festival of Easter

Sunday, April 17, 2022

Festival Service at 9am

This is the feast, the victory of our God! This is our High Festival Day! Christ was crucified and yet death could not conquer him. Truly, Jesus Christ is Lord! Let us celebrate the victory Christ won for us! Alleluia and Amen!

Our Reaction

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Evangelism: Our Reaction Worship at 9am

Sunday School and Bible Study to follow

What is our reaction to all of this? What is our reaction to the weight of our sin and the fullness of forgiveness? Come, join us for this special service as we consider our reaction to God’s grace upon grace.

Devotion: Spring Cleaning

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free.” Galatians 5:13

Spring has sprung! Well… sort of? We’ll see how the weather cooperates. Spring, for me, has always brought a feeling of freedom. The weather starts to warm up and on the occasional warm days the furnace gets turned off and the windows open for the first time in months. The fresh air is sweet, and the sound of the birds chirping is welcoming. I begin dreaming of being able to sit out on the deck again, enjoying a cold drink with the warm sun on my back.

While there are many things to look forward to in spring, there are two words that are always bittersweet when they come to mind: Spring Cleaning. The spring-cleaning list can be incredibly long and arduous. It is filled with surfaces to be dusted and wiped down, windows to be scrubbed inside and out, and garden beds that have been covered in snow for the past four months to be raked. I say it’s bittersweet because while it may take a while to check off the whole list, the feeling when you’re done is incredible.

Apart from the freeing feeling of a clean house, I also feel a sense of freedom this time of year from another source. The season of Lent, to me, has often felt like a cold, long winter. The Alleluias are gone, the music becomes somber and reflective, and the weight of depression from my sins seems to feel extra heavy. While Lent is important and necessary, I always look forward in anticipation for the “spring” of the church year.

Easter brings with it a sense of freedom that is bliss personified. Christ is alive! He has taken spring cleaning to a whole new level and washed away all our sin forever. We are free from sin and death! What is more freeing than that? There is nothing bittersweet about this because there is nothing we have to do. Christ paid it all. He washed us clean with his blood and we are free forever. I pray that the “spring” of Easter fills your hearts with an everlasting joy and freedom won for you on the cross.

From Pastor Rothfuss, Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 2, April 2022

Christian Worship Hymnals

St. Paul Clintonville has the new hymnals and Psalters! What a blessing to have this collection of resources to use! Both the hymnals and the Psalters are filled with old and new favorite hymns. Some of these hymns are powerful to read and reflect on, they are a wonderful addition for us to use. If you would like a copy of the new hymnal, you can order it on nph.net. We do have a few extra copies that members and friends of the congregation can take to use. The hymnals were created to be used in homes and have good resources for daily use. We also have copies of the accompanying devotion book available as well.

We want to give a huge, heartfelt thank you to all those who helped us purchase these faith-building resources. We look forward to using them for many, many years to come!

Our congregation also has copies of the old hymnal that can be taken. They are in the church. While that hymnal was released nearly thirty years ago, our congregation purchased these much later so these are in a good condition.

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Lent begins...

The journey of the church year continues as we begin Lent. Ash Wednesday is March 2nd. Starting with Ash Wednesday we will have our Wednesday midweek services. These worship opportunities are different than the Sunday services. We will also continue our tradition of sharing a meal before the services. Come at 5:30pm on Wednesdays for the meal and stay for our 6:30pm worship service.

Lent is the church season that leads into Easter. Traditionally, Lent begins 40 days before Easter, however since every Sunday is a mini-Easter celebration, Sundays are not included in the 40 day count. Lent focuses our attention on the most important events and truths of the Christian faith. We hear our Lord’s call to repent of our sin, and we remember Jesus’ sufferings and death that won our redemption from sin. During most of Lent the color on the altar will be purple, a color of royalty that reminds us of Christ our King who humbled himself for our sake. Purple is also known as the color of repentance.

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