The preparations are all set for Sunday as Grace Lutheran Church celebrates not only its fiftieth anniversary but also the ceremonial ground breaking for our new building.
  
Worship will be at 10:00 a.m. on the south lawn, weather permitting.
  
Please bring lawn chairs with you to church. We will have additional chairs set up if you don't have lawn chairs.
Our guest preacher for the day is the Rev. Jeffrey Barrow, bishop of our Greater Milwaukee Synod. We are honored to have the bishop with us.
  
The ceremonial ground breaking will take place immediately following the worship service. Bishop Barrow, our Grace charter members, the pastors and congregational leaders will participate in it.
  
Little children will receive their own hard hats to commemorate the day!
  
After the ground breaking ceremony those of you who have paid for the pig and chicken roast meal will be invited to go to the covered portico where the caterers will serve your food.
  
If you didn't pay for the meal in advance, but would like to join in it, please talk to Lisa Bernd before worship or after the ground breaking. We have ordered a limited amount of extra food.
  
You may eat in either the fellowship hall or at the tables that will be set up outside.
  
Following the meal come into the worship center to view a special fiftieth anniversary video, created by John Conto, which will take you through an illustrated history of Grace.
  
Finally, there will be games outside for all ages. We're going to have a tug-of-war, a three-legged race and kick ball. There will also be hula-hoops and hop-scotch for the little ones.
  
This will be a great day! Come and join in the festivities for our special celebration!

Sunday is the day when about 120 volunteers from Grace are heading out into our communities to do all sorts of work to help individuals, groups and God's creation. We are thankful to all who have signed up so far to help.
 
There is still room for more volunteers in several of our projects. We have one new project helping in the memorial garden at the North Shore Academy of the Arts in Grafton that needs workers. You can sign up on Sunday if you want to get involved.
 
Remember that worship is at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday.
 
After worship those who are involved in the "God's Work Our Hands" activities are invited to have lunch in the fellowship hall. When the meal is done our volunteers will head out for the many different work activities for the afternoon.
 
If you have signed up to donate some of the food items for the meal please have them here before worship on Sunday morning. You can drop them off in the kitchen.
 
We're looking forward to nice weather and a great day of serving as God's loving hands to others.

First published in 2006, the "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" hymnal (ELW) was designed to replace the familiar green "Lutheran Book of Worship" which came out in 1978. Most ELCA congregations now use the ELW or "cranberry hymnal" as it is sometimes called.
 
Grace's worship leaders had been talking for some time about replacing our worn LBWs with the ELW and had been looking at ways to pay for them.
 
Thanks to a very generous gift from a family at Grace, a family who wishes to remain anonymous, we have been able to purchase all the copies of the ELW we need! They will be in the pews starting on September 13.
 
If you love the LBW don't think you are having something special taken away. Almost everything that is in the LBW is also in the ELW. The ELW also features a larger number of liturgical settings than the LBW, settings with different styles of music. It also has many more hymns and songs used by Christians in other parts of the world.
 
We are going to keep the blue "With One Voice" hymnals in the pews.
 
We have used parts of the ELW in worship the past several years, especially over the summer months, and the small worship booklets in our pews contain songs from the ELW, so you are already familiar with some of what is in it.
 
If you would like to have a copy of the green LBW you are welcome to take one home with you. We will have them available on September 13.
 
Once again, we are very thankful to the members who have made this possible and we look forward to many years of giving God praise using the ELW!