Summer Worship Schedule

Worship times are:

8AM for traditional liturgical worship in the sanctuary

9:30AM for blended liturgical worship with traditional and contemporary music held in the Outdoor Chapel/weather permitting. The 9:30am service will be livestreamed on Facebook.

11AM for Simply Worship in the sanctuary

On first and third Sundays we will celebrate communion. Fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a mask. Those not vaccinated are recommended to wear a mask.

Virtual worship will continue to be available as well, posted each Sunday morning at:https://www.stpaulsinhanover.org/we-worship/services.

St. Paul’s Women’s Retreat

Women of St. Paul’s, you are invited to a day of worship with Priscilla Shirer on Saturday, August 28 at Grace Church in Eden Prairie.

Hear practical, biblical teaching, learn to study God’s Word for yourself, seek the Lord through powerful prayer and find spiritual refreshment alongside thousands of women from all walks of life. To register go to St. Paul’s website under the We Grow tab/Adult. The cost is $85. (If you need assistance with the cost, do not hesitate to contact the church office.) If you would like to carpool, please contact Dawn in the church office.

Picnic on the Lawn with the Pastors and Staff

Join the St. Paul’s pastors and staff, Tuesdays, weather permitting) on the church lawn behind the outdoor chapel for a picnic and fellowship at 11:30am. Bring your own lunch and chair. All ages are welcome to join in the fun! The pastors and staff truly enjoy spending time in fellowship with you!

Haiti Mission Harvest Fest Duck Drop

Thank you to everyone who has supported the Haiti Education Fund and the Duck Drop Wish List! Over the last year we have been blessed to keep our Haiti Fund going strong. Now we are running low. The Duck Drop will be a way to help replenish our much needed funds. To help get a jump start we will be pre-selling Duck Drop tickets between the services today. Thanks to our sponsors at Thrivent, SeaQuest, Pheasant Acres, Raising Cane's, Pizza Ranch, State Fair, Emagine Theater, Kwik Trip, and friends of Haiti We have over 50 prizes exceeding $2500!!

1 duck = $4 / 2 ducks = $6 / 5 ducks = $10

Winners will be announced at 2:30pm at Settlers Park. Prizes available for pick up starting at 4pm. You do not need to be present to win.

Hanover Food Shelf Volunteers Needed

The Hanover Food Shelf is searching for volunteers to pick up food from Coborns in Albertville on Wendesdays between 8:30-9:30am. A SUV or pick up truck is needed. Please contact Helen Skutley at 763-420-2836 if you are able to help.

Hanover Harvest Fest Donations and Volunteers Needed

Children’s Country Preschool will be organizing and working the children’s game area as a fund-raiser. The event takes place on Saturday, August 7 at Settler’s Park in Hanover. If you are available to volunteer (11:30am-2:30pm; or 2:15-5:15pm), please contact Sue Duley at 763-498-8938, email preschoolinhanover@yahoo.com or use the following link

Hanover Harvest Festival - Children's Country Preschool Volunteers.

Any donations can be left outside the preschool door or in the church office marked “CCP”. Use the following link to indicate what you would like to donate Hanover Harvest Festival - Children's Country Preschool Donations.. Please have items to the church by July 30 so we know if we need to purchase more.

250 – 16.9 oz. bottles of decaf pop/ Gatorade (indicate how many bottles you will be willing to donate. These come in 6 or 8 packs and are not the large 2 liter bottles)

15 bags Tootsie Pop Suckers or three big boxes from Sam’s or Costco

Any carnival game prizes or McDonald toys

Sunday, July 25 Attendance:

8am-57

9:30am-96

11am-23

Virtual-7

Total 183

Sunday, July 25 Offering:

Offering: $8,452

Online Giving: $1,274

Haiti: $245

Building Preservation: $345

Total Weekly Giving: $10,316

Mortgage Balance:

Paid in Full

Have a blessed weekend!

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, (Joel 2:12)

I remember a mission trip I took to Jamaica a few years back. We were up on a hillside, away from the city and the ocean and the resorts, it was hot and muggy and we were working away building a house. I was just about to call a break for water when the breeze picked up, a cloud rolled overhead, and a 10 minute rain fell on us. It was perfect, and refreshing, and uplifting. We all just found trees to sit under and cooled off and recharged. Eventually, the cloud moved on to water something else, and we went back to work finishing what God had put before us. It would have been just as easy to see that as a distraction, a forced pause from work, as it was to appreciate it as an opportunity to rest and recover and renew. So it has been with our time with COVID. No matter how you’ve experienced it, God has continued to move and work and guide and renew us, and now we are ready to “return to him with all our hearts”.

Summer is coming to a close in the next month, and as always it seems like it went way too fast. I remember being younger and counting the days until summer began. Then, as August would drag on, I found myself looking forward to getting back to school or college, wanting to see people, to reconnect, to get back in the swing of things. There are some similarities between that and the church over the last 18 months. I feel like we’ve been through an extended hiatus or a semester abroad, we just haven’t been together the way we are used to, we haven’t quite yet gotten back to the way things used to be. But, as we approach the beginning of the program year at church, with kick off Sunday just around the corner, we are once again looking forward to some normalcy.

Here is what that looks like for us at St. Paul’s:

· Worship times will return to 8, 9:15, and 10:30

* 8AM traditional

* 9:15AM blended with Sunday School

* 10:30AM family worship/contemporary with Sunday School

· Ushers and greeters will be welcoming you to worship, and we will return to traditional communion service

· Fellowship time has already resumed between services

· Confirmation students will once again be all inhouse on Wednesday nights and confirmation meals will resume.

· Fellowship events will return, including a kickoff Sunday food truck festival on September 12.

· Musical groups, choir, bells, worship teams – all back in action and excited to be leading and inviting people into times of worship and praise

· Spiritual growth opportunities will be kicking off as well throughout the year.

So, even now, return to me with all your heart, declares the Lord! Thousands of years ago, that was the call to God’s people, and it rings true today. Return to community, return to a sense of belonging, to purpose, to service, and to worship and praise. I can’t wait to see what God does next through our family here at St. Paul’s!

Blessings, Pastor Luke