All students are welcome to the soup supper on Sunday, January 13 at 6:00 p.m. in the Brammer Student Center. This will be a time to catch up with everyone and find out about their break. You will also learn what some of our students did on their servant event trip to New Orleans. Bring your friends for a relaxing night before classes start again.

The Wednesday night LSF returns on January 16. Join us for games at 8:00 p.m. with Bible Study at 8:30 p.m. See the van schedule for a ride to Bible study on these cold winter nights.

All voting members of the congregation are urged to attend the Annual Meeting on Sunday, January 6, at 11:30 a.m. Several important items are on the agenda including the election of congregational officers and the 2008 operating budget. If you are not a voting member, but would like to be, please talk to Pastor Wegener or Kevin DeVries.

The CHLC Board of Directors elected at the Voters' Assembly on January 6 will be publicly installed into their offices during the morning worship on Sunday, January 13. All elected members of the Board of Directors are encouraged to be present for this service.

A BIG THANK YOU to all the folks who donated Christmas gifts and food items for the Vinton Lutheran Home. When the pickup arrived with five large bags and boxes of gifts, totaling 85 packages, the activity director was overwhelmed with the number of gifts and the colorful wrappings. Then the pickup pulled around back of the home to the delivery entrance and unloaded nearly thirty-five gallon cans of food for use in the kitchen.

Because College Hill Lutheran Church and Brammer Student Center makes such a large donation and also assists with the bake sale at the August Ice Cream Social, we are credited with gifts of $500.00.

Thank you all for assisting our LCMS Nursing Home in this way. It not only shows our material sharing, but also our support and caring.

January 3, the first Thursday in 2008, at 9:30 a.m. will be a new beginning for the Women's Bible Study. We would enjoy sharing our study time with you. The morning will also devote a short bit of time to any Guild business that needs to be addressed.

The Evening Bible study will resume on Thursday, January 17 with the study of Lydia.

Please consider coming to study and enjoy the fellowship of your CHLC friends.

THANK YOU! We wish to thank all the members of College Hill for your very generous Christmas gift to us and for showing us such kindness during this Christmastime.
Pr. Wegener, Heidi, AJ, Aleah, and Javan

I also wish to thank the congregation for the Christmas gift. I look forward to working with you in 2008.
Sylvia

Motivational Speeches or Preaching Christ Crucified

Let's make one thing perfectly clear, righteousness does not come from us. We do not even help a fraction of a percent! So, watch out for those false preachers who continue to burden our consciences with endless motivational speeches about how we can be Christians if only we do this or that! At least Peyton Manning is honest in a recent commercial where his little pep talk is actually a lesson in reality. He tells us middle-aged guys straight up that we probably will never get those awesome abs. I didn't like what Peyton said, but I must admit that it is true.

In his book, The Defense Never Rests, lawyer Craig Parton notes: "In the past 20 years a number of prominent Evangelical churches have stopped displaying the cross in their sanctuaries. Bill Hybels, pastor of a leading American mega- (and crossless) church in Illinois, observed that pagans are offended by the cross. Some fast-growing churches have discovered that the world likes Jesus the Moralist and Jesus the Conservative Family Values Man. As for Jesus the atoning Lamb who died for the sins of the world, who suffered our deserved fate on that cursed tree, and who was indeed wounded for our transgressions-well, He just isn't selling seats like He used to. The real Jesus apparently has a serious marketing problem"

Parton himself came out of such an evangelical church. Today he is an adamant defender of the Christian faith that he later found in Lutheranism. He says, "Lutheranism gets the cross right-why it was necessary, what it accomplished, how I am saved, and how that salvation is delivered to me as still a wretched sinner today. Lutheran theology, teaching, and worship anchor the life of the redeemed believer in Christ and His cross."

Many of our pastors today are faithfully preaching God's Word by convicting people of their sins and pointing them to Christ as their only source of salvation. Their message is one that echoes St. Paul's declaration that we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor. 1:23). They point their hearers away from themselves to the righteousness that comes alone through the merits of Christ. These pastors know that the self-help, feel good speeches sell seats and people flock to hear that kind of talk. They know what the "other" churches are doing to attract the great crowds-giving them what their itching ears want to hear. But faithful preachers stubbornly continue to preach the unpopular message of a Jesus who came to save sinners.

Sometimes people run away from such faithful preachers because they don't like what they hear. They don't want to be reminded that they are sinners even while Jesus declares that it is precisely for sinners that He came into the world. St. Matthew records that "as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' But when He heard it, He said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick'" (St. Matt. 9:10-12). So then, we shouldn't be alarmed when sitting in the pews that we hear the pastor accusing us with God's Law or when we confess that we are "poor miserable sinners." While we don't like to hear that kind of talk, it is good for us to hear it again that we might continually come to the realization that we need to go to the Great Physician for help and medicine! This Physician has the perfect remedy-the forgiveness of sins which He bought with His blood when He died upon the cross. Thus, the preacher drags us down into the depths of Sheol in order to make us aware of our need of forgiveness which we cannot obtain in and of ourselves. In this way, when we are laid low by the Law, we will be raised up to the highest height with the Gospel of Christ and cling to it as our greatest good! In this way we will be constantly reminded that forgiveness and life are given to us freely by God's grace in the Word and Sacraments apart from works of the Law.

Today, we who gather around such faithful preaching will realize that we are spiritually sick (full of sin). We who are sick will desire to frequent the Pharmacy-namely the church where Christ freely fills our prescription in the Divine Service. As St. Ambrose says, "Because I always sin, I am always bound to take the medicine" (Augsburg Confession, Article XXIV). The medicine he speaks of is the Body and Blood of our Lord, given and shed for him and us for the forgiveness of sins.

Listen carefully to sermons then whether at College Hill, other churches, on TV, or on the radio. Listen for Law and Gospel. The Law will always condemn you as a poor miserable sinner-and you probably won't like to hear it! The Gospel will always declare you righteous, not because of your works, but because of what Christ has done for you through His death. Again, St. Paul declares, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:23-24). If you don't hear anything about the Crucified One and only the motivational speeches on morality, then beware-you might be listening to a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Pastor John Wegener

Life Sunday is recognized on January 20 by Christians around the world as a day to emphasize the importance of life. Black Hawk Lutherans for Life will be observing this day by conducting a Memorial Service for the Victims of Abortion:
• Children for whom Christ died who would never be able to hear of His precious love.
• Mothers of aborted children who, in weakness, desperation and fear, listened to the
voices of death.
• Fathers of aborted children, who unable or unwilling to protect a defenseless life, are
in conflict with their responsibility to their preborn child to the mother of that child
and to God.
• Grandparents of aborted children who, unable or unwilling to protect a defenseless life, are in conflict with their conscience and God.
• The doctors, counselors and all who have been deceived by Satan to see abortion as a solution to difficult problems of life.
• Ourselves, members of the Body of Christ, who in ignorance or fear have been silent
when we should have spoken; passive when we should have acted to defend the "least of these."
The Memorial Service will be at 5:30 p.m. at Faith Lutheran Church, 1555 West Ridgeway Avenue, Waterloo. Please join us at we remember the children who have been aborted, pray for healing the hearts of their parents and for healing of our country that all people may respect life.

Lutheran Hour Ministries is offering the parenting families series, ME to WE, in six workshops with DVDs and small group discussions at Grace Lutheran Church, 1024 West Eighth Street, Waterloo on Tuesday evenings, January 8-February 12 from 6:15-8:00 p.m. You are invited to join them for parenting strategies that reduce power struggles and promote healthy, united families! Cost is just $6 per person or $10 per couple for all six sessions. A light snack will be provide. To register call Grace office (235-6705) by January 2 and please indicate if childcare is needed and the number of children and their ages. Please keep this outreach effort in your prayers.

Immanuel Lutheran Kindergarten and Preschool are holding an Open House on Monday, February 4, 6:00-7:30 p.m. Their preschool four year old program is three half days a week. The three year old program is two half days a week. They offer an all day, every day kindergarten program. Immanuel offers a superior Christian education. Immanuel holds both State of Iowa accreditation and National Lutheran School Accreditation.

GREETERS
6 Schumacher Family
13 Coulthard Family
20 Hannah Cearlock & Stephanie Wesely
27 Val Wente & Juanita Flanscha

USHERS
6 Bob Bolte & Richard McBurney
13 Virgil Mauer & Paul Schmellik
20 Tim Gamble & Brad Brons
27 Dennis Adolphs & Tim Tjarks

FINANCIAL RECORDERS
6 Virgil Mauer & Eric Schumacher
13 Johanna Baedke & Suzanne Riehl
20 Stephanie Schumacher & Suzanne Riehl
27 Val Wente & Suzanne Riehl

ACOLYTES
6-20 CJ Ackles & Brian Coulthard

COMMUNION ASSISTANT
6-20 Richard McBurney

ALTAR GUILD
6-13 Madeline Bruce & Lillian Lonergan
20-27 Miriam Krallman & LaDawn Hankins

FELLOWSHIP HOSTS
6 Johanna Baedke & TBA
13 Blankenhagen Family & Brewster Family
20 Potluck-Women's Bible Study
27 TBA

Thank you for your help in serving the Lord and College Hill Lutheran Church

8 Scott Ackles
8 Juanita Flanscha
9 Gabriel Msengi
11 Shadrack Msengi
16 Cody Hutcheson
16 Ann Rueber
18 Randy Reitz
29 Neema Msengi
31 Janet Fort
31 Carolyn Macomber
31 Orlan Ott

January 31 Walter & Miriam Krallman 57 years

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