Sunday, January 25th

THIS WEEK: Sunday, the 25th –

9:30 AM – Adult Sunday School @ the Sacks`

9:30 AM – Multigenerational Sunday School in the cafeteria

11:00 AM – WORSHIP

FELLOWSHIP TIME: after the service

Sunday, January 26th – From 9:30-10:30 AM there will be Adult Sunday School looking at the passages for the sermon. At the same time, there will be Multigenerational Sunday School looking at God`s gift of creation. During the 11 AM worship, Rev. Dr. Jim Sack will preach from 2 Kings 5 and Mark 1, on “Trading Places.”   After the worship service will be a robust fellowship time.

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About the preacher -Jim and Carol Sack have been long term missionaries in Japan with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Japan since 1982. Jim teaches clinical psychology classes in the undergraduate and graduate school as well as pastoral counseling classes in the seminary. Carol is director of “Lyra Precaria,” a ministry that provides harp music and voice at the bedside of the dying. 

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         58th Annual Women’s Conference (January 30 – February 1, 2015) — Inspired by Isaiah 58:11 “You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring,” the 2015 Women’s Conference is entitled Inner Gardening with Hennie Symington as our speaker.  Here is also a link to a promotional video (on YouTube) that you can also share. It is only 1 minute 44 seconds long. http://youtu.be/egrWIelgD9E

         Registration is now open. We have online registration and also a PDF that can be printed out available at our website http://wocon.net A number of women from WTUC attend every year, and we would love to see that number swell = )

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CHRISTIAN EDUCATION CORNER (we value your prayers & involvement in this vital ministry)  Any questions, please contact Pastor Teresa at wtucrev@gmail.com, or Julie Rogers for HS; Amy Harbaugh and Steve Bennett for Upper ES and Lower MS, grades 4-7; and Carrie Bennett for Lower ES, grades K-3.

All classes will resume in January – everyone is welcome!

Little Kids: all are welcome to go with Emin after the Children`s Message to have fun learning about Jesus’ Miracles.

Multigenerational Sunday School January 25th, 9:30 AM

Adult Sunday School January 25th, 9:30 AM

MS & HS – Wednesday, January 28th 5:30-7:00 PM (PACT day at ASIJ) at Hoskins’ house. Please be reading Chapter 4 (pages 46-60) of our book “Do Hard Things.”  

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Upcoming Preaching Ministry and Community Time

February 1st              Rev. Christian Zebley preaching, Communion

February 8th              Pastor Teresa preaching, Steering Committee

February 15th           Pastor Teresa, Communion, Healing Prayers

February 18th           Ash Wednesday service

February 22nd           Rev. Dr. Paul Shew

March 1st                 Rev. Dr. Jim Sack, Communion

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MULTIGENERATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL!! ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL!!

We have Multigenerational Sunday School from 9:30 in the cafeteria the second and fourth Sundays of the month. Who is welcome? All ages. We will be creating, discussing, Multi-generational-worshipplaying games, acting out bible stories and more. Sunday School will start up again in January – 1/25, 2/8, 2/22 …

At the same time, The Sacks host the Adult Sunday School, also at 9:30 am in their living room. The method used is the, “Swedish Bible study method,” interacting with the texts for the service through our own life experiences. Their home is right across the Lutheran Campus from our sanctuary. Best coffee in town = ) Come and enjoy! (At times Adult Sunday School is held in the Upper Room, on the 2nd floor above the Sanctuary.) All are welcome. Need more information, contact wtucrev@gmail.com any time = )

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WTUC Announcements:

*Questions or concerns? Feel free to email wtucrev@gmail.com anytime.

*Please enjoy and refer our website https://wtuc.net/ and FB page (West Tokyo Union Church) to others. Please make any suggestions for additions to the Pastor Teresa and/or Steering Committee.

*If you’d like to be added to the WTUC church email list, please contact Gene Witt ewitt@asij.ac.jp

*If interested in joining the WTUC Prayer Chain, let Pastor Teresa or Prayer Chain Coordinator, Kayo Ozawa, know of your interest. Please submit prayers to wtucrev@gmail.com or Kayo Ozawa.

*Sign up for snacks for fellowship time with Ann or on the list on the white board for next year. We appreciate your contributions to our community life!

*Each week we will be setting up the chairs for worship and preparing the sanctuary, anyone around at 10:30am is invited to be involved in the fun = ) Each week we will also return our sanctuary to it`s classroom style after the fellowship time.

*Interested in baptism or membership, please contact Pastor Teresa.

*Interested in a paid position setting up and/or taking down the chairs of our sanctuary? Contact Pastor Teresa at wtucrev@gmail.com

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Scripture Passages for the sermon –

2Kings. 5:1-14     1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy.  2 Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” 4 So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. 5 And the king of Aram said, “Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.” He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. 6 He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.” 7 When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.” 8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, “Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.”  9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.” 11 But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?” He turned and went away in a rage. 13 But his servants approached and said to him, “Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean?” 14 So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

Mark 1:40   A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”  41   Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!  42   Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.   43   After sternly warning him he sent him away at once,   44   saying to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”   45   But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

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