Friends of Immanuel,

In March of 2020, when we began our brief remote learning time because of Covid, students in Mrs. Grimm’s 4^th and 5^th grade class began writing letters to church members each week. The hope was that we could build community between students in our school and Immanuel Church members. In addition, Mrs. Grimm used the experience as a service-learning activity and a writing lesson activity. The feedback we received was that students really enjoyed the opportunity to write these letters, and the letters were enjoyed by the church members. In fact, some of the church members started to write back to students. The students were thrilled!

In the past few years, we have expanded the program to be a more intentional pen pal ministry where letters are reciprocated between the student and member. Students are matched up with church members who agree to write back to the students – and letters are exchanged monthly. It has been amazing to watch this program continue to evolve. Pen Pals were invited to the December Young at Heart’s Christmas program. 4^th and 5^th grade students shared a mini-Christmas program of Scripture and song. Then students and pen pals were able to connect in person and get to know each other a little better.

Mrs. Grimm has shared that the way God designs the connections between students and their pen pals is nothing short of amazing. Most of the time, the pen pal connections are a random selection of “this” student with “this” adult. Here’s the amazing part of this where God is obviously at work, with these connections and blessings discovered at last week’s Young at Heart’s Christmas program:

• There’s a 5^th grade student who ended up being matched last year with a senior adult from our congregation and both share a love of farming! The senior was a farmer for several years and the student wants to run his family’s Century Farm in Iowa when he grows up. They spent time last Friday looking up the Century Farm on Google Maps!!
• Another “random” pairing this year connected a 4^th grade student with a couple who used to babysit this student’s mom when she was young. The couple is sharing stories about this young kiddo’s mother when she was a child herself.

One last example is of a pen pal, Sandy, who has recently lost her spouse and had a hard time adjusting to life without her husband. I’d like to share the email Sandy sent Mrs. Grimm after she got home from the Christmas program:

“Hello Mrs. Grimm… this was my very first time to come to Immanuel by myself since Jim was promoted to Heaven. My kids have

brought me a few times, but I could never face it by myself. UNTIL today… so as not to disappoint a sweet little girl [her pen pal]. I could not talk myself out of making the trip… no sick dog… no bad weather… no personal illness… A beautiful bright sunny day!!!!!! So. I

accomplished another “first”… for the sake a young lady named ***. And what fun it was to visit with her. I didn’t have to wonder what we were going to talk about!!! I told her it was so fun to talk with her because we both love to laugh! It was so great. Observing the behavior of the students, it was pretty obvious they have a great deal of respect and admiration for you. May you have a blessed Christmas❤️”

Praise be to God for these wonderful intergenerational connections that He is using to bless children and older adults in some amazing ways!

Serving together in Christ alone!
Pastor Glen

Friends of Immanuel, 

There are so many celebrations of Christmas and various Christmas programs happening that it’s hard to keep up! First, this week we have our Preschool Christmas program, including the dress rehearsal on Wednesday at 9:00am and then the program itself on Thursday at 9:00am. All are welcome to come and enjoy these little ones sharing the Christmas story! 

Last Thursday we had our Kindergarten through 8th grade Christmas program and then yesterday we enjoyed an amazing Christmas Cantata from our Christmas Choir led by Kathy Schlecht, Immanuel’s Director of Worship and Music Ministries, and in-between the 8:00am and 10:30am worship services, we were treated to lots of cuteness with our Children’s Christmas program led by Miss Emma and Kathy and Elizabeth Grimm, as the children told the story of Christmas in a very fun and creative way!   

Why do we do all this? It’s not just a “cuteness” factor, nor is it to provide a musical outlet to those who are musically inclined. It’s not just about having activities to keep us busy. As with everything we do here at Immanuel, it’s because of Jesus! We’re doing all the programs, worship services, beautiful music, fellowship opportunities, decorations, caroling, and more, to help more and more people hear the life-changing news of Jesus and what His birth so long ago still means for us and for our world. With that in mind, I want to share a little bit more today about last Thursday’s K-8 Christmas program for our school ministry. 

The school Christmas program was titled, “Jesus was Born this Night.” Under the skilled direction of our music teacher, Mrs. Heidi Kenyon (pictured here), the students learned a total of 18 songs across the grades of K-8. In addition to lots of great singing, students also played Orff instruments, chimes, and bucket drums, and accompanied several songs on these instruments. One audience favorite was the Bucket Drumming that accompanied “The Little Drummer Boy.” The sanctuary was packed with families, friends, and relatives who came from California and Texas and across the state of Colorado…with many more joining in on live stream from around the country. Through all the music, the story of Jesus’ birth was central and points to the reason why and what and who we celebrat

e at Christmas!  

Families joined together in the gym for fellowship and cookies afterwards. The compliments to our directors were numerous, including, “That was the best Christmas program I’ve ever seen!” “The music was fantastic!” “The students looked and sounded marvelous!” “I’ve seen so many Christmas programs over the years but none so fine as this one!” “It was wonderful to see this Christmas program tonight!” “This was the best night ever!” “Thank You…Just…Thank You!” One grandparent sent an email that expressed a bit more. Here is some of what she shared: “As a grandparent attending this Christmas program for the first time, I was so humbled and overwhelmed by the excellence exhibited by all the children last evening. There was a sense of welcoming warmth as the program began. The excitement within the children was seen and felt. The music selections from a variety of genres were simply outstanding!! Your music teachers need to be highly commended not only for their skill set, but for their passion to bring music into the lives of children of all ages… I thanked Jesus last evening for the gifts these women have and for imprinting their gifts upon the minds and hearts of all these children; selfishly for my grandson who is a student at Immanuel. Thank you for a beautiful program that shared the wonderful message of our Savior Jesus through music. Last night was a special memory that I will carry in my heart.” 

Mrs. Kenyon and Mrs. Grimm both stated that they could not be more proud of these students and all of their hard work to learn their lines, lyrics, motions, and music. All Glory to Jesus, the newborn King whose birthday we celebrate again and again!!! 

More stories are coming of the impact our Savior is having on so many people through the ministries and people here at Immanuel. I continue to be encouraged as I hear how so many of you are creatively and boldly reaching out to your friends, neighbors, and co-workers, extending invitations, having conversations, and sharing Jesus and His love with the people in your life! 

Serving together in Christ alone! 

Pastor Glen 

Friends of Immanuel,

We have so many great opportunities here at Immanuel to not only prepare for but to celebrate Jesus and His coming into the world at Christmas.

• This evening at 6:30pm we have our Immanuel Lutheran School Christmas program with our Kindergarteners through 8^th grade sharing with music and instruments the great Good News of Jesus’ birth.
• This Sunday, December 15^th, our Christmas Choir will be sharing the message of Christmas in both our 8:00 and 10:30 worship services with their annual Christmas cantata.
• Also this Sunday, at 9:30am in between worship services, the children of our congregation will be doing their Children’s Christmas program, followed by a cookie reception.
• Next Wednesday and Thursday, December 18^th and 19^th, our preschoolers will be sharing their very cute Christmas program with us, starting at 9:00am on both days.

You are welcome to any and all of these fun, festive celebrations and times of worship!

It’s also not too early to be thinking about people you can extend invitations to join you for one or more of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day worship services. Last Sunday we included a postcard as an insert in our worship folders. On that postcard is listed all of our Christmas worship services as well as a QR code to our website and more information about Immanuel. We’ll have those inserted in this week’s worship folders again and we have many more available at the Information Station as well as on a table in the atrium. I would strongly encourage you to take several with you to invite friends, co-workers, neighbors, or other acquaintances. A personal invitation is the most effective way to reach out to others.

Here is a poster that includes one side of that postcard, listing all the worship services and times. I’d like to highlight two of those services to give a little more clarification of what to expect. The 5:00pm Family Christmas Worship is a worship service that is geared primarily toward families with younger children. The message will include activity and movement and some hands-on take-homes for the children.

The other service I want to highlight is right after that, starting with a 6:30pm Concert of Christmas music. Immanuel is blessed with so many gifted musicians and the 30-minute concert will be pure delight as we hear vocalists and instrumentalists sharing many different genre of Christmas music. The 7:00pm worship service will also include a lot of music, all of it led by an instrumental ensemble and handbell choir. The message for this service will include seven brief reflections from members of Immanuel on various familiar Christmas prophecies and Scripture passages about the Christmas Story.

If you are looking for quiet and calm, the 30-minute Harp and Flute Concert before the 10:00pm Christmas Eve service will fit the bill! The 3:30pm, 7:00pm, and 10:00pm Christmas Eve services will all end with a candlelight ceremony and singing “Silent Night.” I’ll be preaching a sermon at 3:30pm and 10:00pm and then a different message for the Christmas Day service at 9:00am.

Be prayerful and be intentional over these next twelve days when it comes to reaching out to those you know this Christmas. I’m looking forward to celebrating our Savior’s birth with you over and over again in these coming days!

Serving together in Christ alone!
Pastor Glen

Friends of Immanuel, 

This season of Advent we’re thinking about some of the fears we may experience or certain fears that are in our world today, and what Jesus brings to end those fears. Yesterday in worship we talked about the Fear of Lack, that is, fears that arise over wondering whether or not we have enough (for basic living) or we are enough (regarding our self-worth, self-esteem, and image). The underlying question in this is, how do we view God – as a God of scarcity or as a God of abundance? 

Throughout Scripture, God demonstrates clearly that He is a God of abundance. He never skimps but always goes over-the-top, especially when it comes to forgiveness, grace, and love. He’s also never late when it comes to His provision. We may lean toward disagreeing with that, but primarily because we’d much rather have what we need well in advance. But He has assured us that we have a Father who knows our every need (Luke 12:22-30) and also a Father who has been pleased to give us the Kingdom (Luke 12:32)! Blessing upon blessing, and always in abundance!  

I shared three very recent examples of God’s amazing provision that we’ve experienced right here at Immanuel. For those who weren’t able to join us for worship, I want to share these with all of you. 

First, regarding our financial challenges that we’ve been dealing with for the better part of this calendar year. On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, I included our current fiscal year financial reports in that email update. Those reports indicated that so far in our fiscal year (July through October) our offerings were up about 13% from last year (which is amazing – praise God!); however, because of the state of our finances, we had budgeted the increase to be even higher in order to meet anticipated expenses and we were about $20,000 short of our budget. On Friday, the next day, one of our longtime members (who has not been able to keep up with all the information in the email updates due to some other challenges she and her husband were dealing with which have been all-consuming for them as of late, and was not even aware of this shortfall in our offerings), stopped by Immanuel and gave us a check for $22,000 (a partial tithe they wanted to give following the sale of their home). Is something like this mere coincidence or is God working in some miraculous fashion to remind us that He knows our needs and He’s here for us? I firmly believe it’s the latter! When I brought this to the couple’s attention, they were absolutely thrilled to hear how they could be part of God’s miraculous working! 

Second, some examples from our school ministry. In mid-November we had a new 8th grader start at Immanuel, which is awesome! Over the past several weeks, we’ve had more inquiries and possible leads to additional students for our toddler through 8th grades. About the same time as the new 8th grader enrolled, we had two families express an interest in our high school. One of those students is from Loveland High, the other is from a homeschool background. After meeting with Dr. Rick Overton, the Executive Director of the High School, one of the students started last Tuesday and the other will start in January, tripling our high school enrollment! But the neatest part of this is why one of those students chose Immanuel. Her parents shared that she is here specifically because she “is interested in becoming more serious about her faith.” That’s what this is all about! 

Lastly, on the first Sunday in November, all three live stream cameras stopped working just before the start of worship. Over the few weeks many, many hours were spent on the issue. Mark Meyer was able to figure out how to restore power to the cameras (thank you, Mark!) but we were still unable to figure out why the cameras were not feeding into the live stream. An individual, not a member of our congregation, was recommended to us by an Executive Council member as someone who might be able to help. Kathy contacted him and he came on a Sunday afternoon and gave 4-5 hours of his time to come in to diagnose the issue. He was able to fix it and gave us a very generous discount on his time and expertise. In addition, he offered to provide support to our live stream volunteers at no additional cost to us. What a gift! 

There are more stories I could share, in particular with new people coming and joining us for worship, through invitations that are being extended by many of you, as well as through some of the events, activities, and ministries we continue to do. I’ll share those at a later time! 

I share these examples to provide encouragement – God knows us and He knows our needs, as individuals, as families, and as His Church. We know, from firsthand experience, that God continues to speak into people’s lives and touch hearts, inspiring generosity and giving for Kingdom work in a wide variety of ways. He’s put us together here as a community of faith, a community that includes people with all manner of talents, abilities, time, and resources. And He invites us to trust Him, to stay faithful to Him, to continue to do what we’ve been called to do – which is to share the Good News of Jesus and the love, forgiveness, grace, life, and hope He has come to bring.  

Let’s let His abundance continue to flow through us as we continue to work and serve together in His Kingdom. We serve an amazing God – a God of great abundance and love. And here is this week’s What Now? for you to consider as we step through the coming week. 

What Now? 

This week look at the world with eyes of abundance. See the many blessings of God’s provision – spiritual, material, creation, etc. – that our amazing God has generously poured into our lives. Pause regularly through the week to give Him thanks and praise for His abundant generosity. Then look for at least one way you can be generous. 

Serving together in Christ alone! 

Pastor Glen 

Friends of Immanuel,
We started our new Advent worship series last Sunday, December 1^st, and I’d like to share a little more information behind what’s coming up in this relatively short Advent and Christmas series. It’s entitled, His Gospel Is Peace: The Advent of Christ & The End of Fear.

To be human is to understand what it means to fear. The smallest child is afraid when the lights turn off at night. The most famous rock star is driven by fear of rejection from their adoring fans. Fear keeps us from the Thanksgiving dinner table (or perhaps fuels the shouting match after the pumpkin pie is served). Fear elevates and prolongs our anxiety or our shame as we choose to avoid addressing our mistakes – and the mistakes of others – out of concern that we’ll only make things worse. The season of Advent helps us long for a different reality: one ruled by peace rather than fear.

As Pastor Matt Popovits writes in this series, “Christ’s birth and the promise of his second coming mean peace is breaking through.” For the Son of God was born into our tribulation, despair, and fear not just to comfort us but to bring an end to whatever terrifies us most. This is why the psalmist can assert, “We will not fear, though the earth gives way.” It’s why one of Jesus’ common refrains is “Fear not.” It’s why Paul proclaims that the peace of God guards and rules over the hearts of His people. The Prince of Peace comes to live for us, die for us, and rise for us. In doing so, He overcomes death itself, cleanses us of our sin, defeats the evil one, and makes us righteous. Through faith in our Savior, born Immanuel, we cannot be rejected, we have nothing to be ashamed of, and we have the promise of life everlasting. In Christ alone, fear is exchanged for peace. This Advent series focuses on five places in Scripture where God addresses our fears and proclaims His peace. Despite your worries, anxieties, and very real suffering, we have a God who stands resolute to give us His “peace which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).

Last Sunday we started with No Fear of the Future. This Sunday will be No Fear of Lack (see the worship information a little later in this update). Through the rest of the Advent and into the Christmas season, we’ll look at No Fear of Man, No Fear (Christmas Eve), and No Fear of Failure on December 29^th.

This is a very timely series with so much fear all around us. As followers of Jesus, we don’t have to be afraid! 365 times in God’s Word, we’re told not to be afraid – yes, that’s one reminder for every day of the year! I hope this series will be an encouragement for all of us as we continue to live our lives with boldness, courage, and no fear, or as we state in our Vision Statement, Fearless Living, with the Lord in our hearts and by our sides!

Serving together in Christ alone!
Pastor Glen

Friends of Immanuel, 

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” That’s how I began my message yesterday and I fully stand by it!! It really IS the most wonderful time of the year – between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, the festive atmosphere with lights and trees and decorations going up, the anticipation the season of Advent brings as we count down week-by-week to our glorious celebrations of Jesus’ birth, all the Christmas programs and concerts, and so much more! It truly is wonderful! 

As we talked about yesterday, as wonderful as it is, however, it’s not without stress, anxiety, and craziness. That’s not to take away from how wonderful it is, but to acknowledge the reality that at this time of year – perhaps especially this time of year – there are challenges and struggles we all have to deal with. Yet in the midst of it all, good and bad, uplifting and challenging, our Lord has brought us His peace. What a gift He’s given. His peace is not a magical thing to take all the bad away, but it is a real thing – a gift that comes to us to fill us from deep inside.  

That’s part of the encouragement I wrapped up the message with and included in this week’s What Now? With regard to the What Now? during this season of Advent, let me explain what’s happening. For many years we’ve always had a printed copy of our daily Bring It Home devotions with the What Now? printed on the front cover. Yesterday, and throughout Advent, we will not have that printed insert in the Sunday worship folder. The reason for that is we are using the daily devotions that have been written specifically for this particular series we are using. 

We have often, though not always, printed Advent devotions provided by Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM). If you are interested in using LHM Advent devotions, you can find them here: https://www.lhm.org/Advent/. Our Advent devotions this year are produced by 1517, a nonprofit organization that exists “to declare and defend the Good News that you are forgiven and free on account of Christ alone.” To find out more about other resources available from 1517, visit www.1517.org.  

We have those printed Advent devotional booklets available, which include all 25 daily devotions for you to use from December 1st through December 25th. For those of you who receive the daily Bring It Home devotions by email every day, those will still be arriving in your inbox about 4:00am every day, including Sunday. With the emailed devotions, at the bottom we always include that week’s What Now?, so you have it readily available. If you would like to sign up to receive the daily devotions by email, contact the Church Office (ChurchOffice@ImmanuelLoveland.org) and we’ll be happy to add you to that email group. 

Each Monday, I’ll also be including the week’s What Now? in my lead article for the email updates through the month so you can also receive it that way. And with that, here’s this week’s What Now?: 

What Now? 

Choose to see this Advent and Christmas differently. Use all the preparations and celebrations to remember God’s faithfulness of the past. Let His promises fill every activity – decorating, shopping, gathering, celebrating, worshiping – and serve to remind us that He holds our tomorrows and our future. 

Lastly, don’t forget our Midweek Advent worship services that start THIS Wednesday. There will be worship at 1:00pm and 7:00pm, each of which is a simple, 30-minutes contemplative-style of service, giving us the opportunity to step out of the chaos this time of year can be and take some quiet time to reflect a bit on God and His Word, His promises, and His gifts to us. I hope you can join me! 

Serving together in Christ alone! 

Pastor Glen 

Friends of Immanuel,
Every year at Thanksgiving, I have some fun sharing a few of the many, many things for which I’m thankful. Below is a collage of pictures that expresses my gratitude. A thank you/shout-out to my daughter-in-law Leah for her help in creating this for me! “I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” (Ephesians 1:16)

A blessed and gratitude-filled Thanksgiving to you all!


Serving together in Christ alone!
Pastor Glen

Friends of Immanuel, 

Immanuel’s annual Christmas Bazaar is in the books – and what an amazing day it was! We had well over 1300 people, plus vendors and volunteers, who were part of the day. I had many, many great conversations with people about faith, baptism, Christmas, the church, our school, the Packers, and so much more. And I know there were many other conversations and interactions that took place that so many of you had.  

Pray now that the many seeds of Christ’s love that were planted might bear fruit in the hearts and lives of people. Thank you to everyone who helped make this year’s bazaar an awesome event – to Cindy Eversol who worked with all the vendors over the course of many, many months, for Kathy Schlecht who oversaw the bazaar itself, for the donation and prep of the pulled pork for lunch from the Frerichs and the donation of chili from Runza to support the youth, for the tons of Holiday Café support (SO much help!), bringing in pies for the lunch, tarpers and tapers, greeting our vendors on Friday and our guests Saturday, parking lot attendants, for Jim Ramsey carting people to and from cars all day in his golf cart, musical entertainment, set-up and hosting Pictures With Santa (and both of our awesome Santas!), helping kiddos make Christmas crafts in Santa’s workshop, making cookies and assembling and selling cookies trays,  for the greeters, and for the clean-up crew. It really does take an army to pull off this event. Our volunteers heard comments from numerous vendors that they have never been treated this well at any other event… Radical Hospitality at its best! 

I’m thankful for all who make up this amazing community of faith here at Immanuel. We are mission-driven, Christ-centered, and all about sharing Jesus and His love, and furthering God’s Kingdom. Praise God for the opportunities we have – in abundance! – to serve our Lord together! 

Here are a few pictures for you to enjoy that captured some of the many fun aspects of Saturday’s bazaar. 

Serving together in Christ alone! 

Pastor Glen 

Friends of Immanuel,
On Tuesday we had our November Executive Council (EC) meeting and one of the things coming out of that monthly meeting of our leadership is an update on our financial status that I want to share with you. From the EC, transparency was one of the assurances given to you, the congregation, especially with regard to our finances. I want to express my thanks to Dawn Bowers (Director of Accounting and Finance) and Amanda (part-time accountant) who have been working hard and doing a great job in moving toward keeping our finances current and in the hands of our leaders, as well as bringing clarity to our past financial records.

There is some “good news/bad news” of which I want to make you aware. The good news is that offerings from July through October are up 13% from last year! Year-to-Date offerings from July to October are $280,505 versus Prior Year offerings during this same time of $246,534. Praise God and thank you!!

The bad news is we are about 6.5% under budget – we had budgeted $300,000 in offerings to this point in the year and we have received $280,505. As you can see from the chart below, most months during the year, we have budgeted $80,000 for offerings each month – less during summer months of July and August, and more in December and at Easter. This past month, October, we received about $12,000 less than we need to meet our budget and current needs.

Regarding our offerings, I thank God for all of you who have prayerfully raised the level of your giving when that challenge was raised earlier this summer. Thank you! There are two things I am asking all of you right now in the second quarter of our fiscal year:

1. Prayerfully look at the level of your giving to the Lord through Immanuel’s ministries. If you are able to raise that, thank you. I ask that knowing these are increasingly challenging times with our economy and cost of groceries, cost of living, etc., and there are likely some of you who simply cannot do that and still make ends meet in your household. At the same time, please remember that there is not one or two big gifts or givers that are going to “fix” our challenges. We are a congregation, God’s Church together in this place and time. It takes all of us working together, serving together, playing together, praying together, worshiping together, growing together, and giving together, that makes Immanuel what it is. It is all of us, out of our love for our Lord and Immanuel, as we give even the smallest amounts that the Lord uses and blesses! So thank you for however that may look for you and your household!
2. As we are nearing Thanksgiving and the end of the calendar year, I encourage you to prayerfully consider giving an over-and-above-your-regular-giving Thank Offering to the Lord. Whether that is around Thanksgiving or as a year-end gift, consider what you can give to the Lord out of your thanks for the blessings you are experiencing in your life right now. Thank you for considering that and for doing it!

You will find the full financial report from the EC at the very bottom of this email where you can see a full account of all our finances, including revenue and expenses. There is also a narrative page that helps explain some of the trends we are seeing. I don’t want to cause unnecessary alarm, but the place we are in financially remains a bit precarious. The EC is continuing to monitor and also talk about what steps may need to be taken to keep moving forward when it comes to revenue, expenses, and other ways to help our financial situation, both short- and long-term. Dawn is also working to provide some projections to help in the planning process.

Dawn and Amanda have also been working toward providing a Balance Sheet, which may be of interest to some of you. It’s not complete yet but is a work-in-progress. I’m not attaching that, but if you would like to see this, it’s readily available from Dawn. Simply reach out to her at dbowers@ImmanuelLoveland.org, and she will be happy to provide you a copy of that as well as answer any questions you may have.

Speaking honestly, we are still in a very real financial challenge. As you will see, if you look at the attached financial spreadsheet, while all of us on staff are working hard to be the best stewards we can be, minimizing spending and doing all that we can with limited resources, we are still facing some challenges with our cash flow. Being under budget with some school revenue and relatively close with all our expenses, we are still running a deficit as of October 31^st of $127,000.

What can you do?

• Prayerfully consider the two items above regarding your personal giving.
• Continue praying for our school enrollment. We had two high school students meet with Rick Overton, our Executive Director of the High School, this week. We also added another 8^th grader this week. Pray for more families to see the amazing value of the education we offer children and families through our school ministry and to consider enrolling their children in our school. We offer tours, can answer questions, and so much more if you or other families you know or have contact with would like to know more about our awesome school ministry. Continue to spread the word! It’s not too late to be part of our school ministry this year.
• Pray for our leadership as they continue to explore various short- and long-term opportunities and options.
• Keep focused on the mission the Lord has given us – to live by faith, to share the hope and the love we know in Jesus with others, to walk with and invite people in our lives to join us in following our Lord and furthering His Kingdom.
• Don’t ever forget that we are in His hands. We’re not alone in this and we’re certainly not on our own. We have a mighty, powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God. He’s got us! Pray for the Lord to work as only He can – go ahead and pray for God to work some miracles in our midst! And pray that He would have His way with us and with His ministry here at Immanuel.

In attempting to find any possible areas where costs could be reduced, Immanuel's leadership asked Jodi Hoehne, our part-time HR expert, to look at our health plan to see if it provided good value for our workers at the best possible cost for Immanuel. After Jodi’s exploration, this is what she shared with me and with the EC last week:
“I heard back from the Health Insurance broker here in Colorado and am happy to report that the plan we have is clearly the best when it comes to cost and coverage. I also learned that Lutheran High School’s Executive Director had also done some research on his own and learned the same thing! Concordia Plans offers the best and cheapest coverage and plans out there and their goal of keeping costs down as much as possible is very effective. Concordia Plans is doing a very good job of taking care of both employer and employees.”

And for that we give thanks to God! Thank you again to all who call Immanuel home and for all that you do and give. This is an amazing community of faith and it’s a joy to be here with all of you, serving, worshiping, playing, and growing in our Lord together! Let’s continue pressing on, following His lead for our lives and our life together!

Serving together in Christ alone!
Pastor Glen