Announcements for July 5, 2026

ALTAR FLOWERS
The altar flowers are given to the glory of God, in honor of all the volunteers and council members at St. John’s, and in celebration of the 25oth anniversary of the independence of the United States of America, by Lynn Martin.

MID-WEEK BIBLE STUDY
Join us on Wednesdays at 10:30 AM in the Sunday School building as we use Martin Luther’s Large Catechism to explore what the Ten Commandments mean and how they continue to shape our lives of faith today. Luther’s Large Catechism was originally written for local pastors, many of whom had little formal education, with the aim of helping them teach the Christian faith in simple and practical ways. Nearly 500 years later, Martin Luther’s words still have much to teach us.

COUNCIL MEETING
Council will hold its regular monthly meeting next Sunday, July 12, 2026, following the worship service. One item on the agenda will be the review of Chapters 12 – 20 of the Model Constitution for Congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, as of August 2025. During the May and June meetings, Council reviewed Chapters 1 -11. The Council’s objective is to modernize St. John’s current constitution, adopted in 1999, by aligning it with the Model Constitution and making revisions to streamline operations and make it easier to conduct business.
Congregation members are always welcome at any of our Council meetings. We invite you to join us at the meetings during the next few months as we continue to review and update St. John’s constitution.

HOMECOMING
Thank you to everyone who made our homecoming celebration last Sunday a big success! We especially thank Coleen and Homer Thompson for the delicious lunch. Also, we thank Bonnie Stevens for preparing the special slide show of pictures from years past. You will have another opportunity to see the slide show. It will be playing on the television in the fellowship hall today during breakfast and also following Bible study prior to the worship service.

ON-LINE GIVING THROUGH TITHE.LY
If you choose to give to St. John’s through Tithe.ly by selecting the “Give” button at https://stjohnsirmo.org, you will notice a slightly different look for the giving form. Multi-fund giving is now available for one-time donations. A donor can split a donation across a maximum of five funds in a single transaction. However, a donor wishing to set up recurring gifts for multiple funds must set up each recurring gift individually by fund.

Thank you to Judy Hrinda for contacting Tithe.ly and getting the giving form updated, and thank you to Fran Eleazer for updating the link on St. John’s website.

NOISY OFFERING
The noisy offering collected in June totaled $92.80. Due to conflicting written and oral communications regarding the intended recipient, we combined one-half of this offering with the $74.21 collected in May and added $29.39 from Thrivent Choice grant funds and donated $150.00 to the SC Synod’s Bishop Ginny Aebischer Fund. Bishop Aebischer is retiring this year, and this new fund at the SC Synod honors her lifelong ministry. The Bishop Ginny Aebischer Fund is restricted for use for the ministry of youth and family faith formation in the South Carolina Synod.

Council designated the noisy offerings to be collected in July and August to benefit Restoration Chapel, and the remaining one-half collected in June ($46.40) will be added to the donations for Restoration Chapel.