From Pastor Ryan
SOTP: We not only know how to worship together, we know how to play together too!
You’ve likely heard by now that Wednesday Night Dinners are back at Shepherd of the Prairie! As of the writing of this, we have had our first dinner and we are off to a great start! More than 40-45 people of all ages came together around tables with salad and pasta. We had fantastic conversation, laughter, and excitement. The dinners run from 5:45-6:45pm. To support the ministry and help the volunteers who are preparing the food, we are asking for a suggested donation of $4 per person.
Kids Connect Rebuild!
For some time now, our Children, Youth, and Family Ministry Team has been working to address the struggles we have had in recruiting and keeping volunteers for our Kids Connect program. We planned to designate our entire October Ministry Night meeting to develop a plan to remedy our struggles. I introduced the team to a diagnostic tool that helps leaders identify when there is a not-so-obvious, underlying challenge.
To make a long story short, after we used the tool to discuss our concern over lack of volunteers, we began to realize that it was more than the volunteerism that we needed to address. We discerned that our Kids Connect program needs a complete overhaul. For one example, our program is currently driven by the curriculum we’ve been using, but we have received some feedback that curriculum is not meeting the needs of our volunteer leaders and is really geared toward a program much bigger than ours with more resources.
The rebuilding process will officially begin on December 8 at 10:15am. In between worship services on that Sunday, we invite anyone and everyone from SOTP who has any ideas, dreams, desires, or general feedback related to our children’s faith formation program to join us for a roundtable discussion in the Fellowship Hall. Jill, the team, and I have been working hard to develop some questions to guide our conversation and we also plan to distribute some surveys. We want to find out what our families need and want when it comes to forming the faith of the children of SOTP.
I am also diligently working on developing a document that outlines the foundational purposes, values, and goals as they relate to the faith and spiritual formation of our programs. From that foundation we will create a whole new program, seek out a curriculum or curricula that work for us, and work out the technical details that will make our program as effective as possible.
Your feedback is very important to this process. Please plan to attend the roundtable. If your schedule won’t allow it, please reach out to me to receive a copy of the survey we will be distributing. We would like as many responses as possible. This process will have a major effect on the future of children’s programming at SOTP and we want to make sure we have the needs and wishes of our families at the forefront of any decisions we make.
Thank you for the incredible ways you serve our amazing faith community! I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year’s celebration!
May the peace of the Lord be with you always,
Pastor Ryan
Email Pastor Ryan: pastorryan@sotpmail.com
From Our Offering Counters
Just a reminder that in 2025 everyone will receive offering envelopes by mail quarterly. We realize that some of you in the past have opted out of receiving envelopes so before you throw these envelopes away, we encourage you to remember a couple of things related to your giving to Shepherd of the Prairie.
When the offering counters receive an envelope which has a check enclosed and the distribution is marked on the envelope, this helps our counters tremendously to quickly account for your gift. We just need to open the envelope, make sure the figures agree on the check and envelope, and put each one in separate piles to be totaled.
When a loose check is received there are several more steps to be taken in order to process each donation.
Our counters must look up the name on the check, then fill out an envelope form which is a copy of the back of the offering envelope, with the giver’s name, envelope number, and gift amount. This is then paperclipped to the check and given to the counter that is opening envelopes that day. As you can see a loose check takes our volunteers much more time to process to be sure each gift is given proper credit to donors. So far, we have processed over 180 loose checks from households that opted out of 2024 envelopes.
Please keep the 2025 envelopes to be used on special services and various things that come up during the year like the food pantry and memorials. Of course, regular giving may be done online which is also a wonderful way to easily give to the ministry we share at SOTP.
Thanks again for your ongoing support. We are surely blessed by the generosity of every gift received!
Contact: Ralph Wehnes
ralphwehnes@sbcglobal.net
Updating Pictures & Information
As you may know, we are now publishing our Member Directory with members’ photos. 
If you need to update or add your photo, please send your photo to Donna Kelly donna@sotpmail.com, or Ed Cuttle
edschn28@comcast.net and we will update or add it to the directory.
We publish an updated directory every time we receive new members, so 4 times a year. If you would like to receive the updated
directory via email, please let Michelle Rankin know, michelle@sotpmail.com or you can pick one up at the office or at the Registration Desk.
If you have any questions, contact Donna Kelly, donna@sotpmail.com or through the church office.
We Encourage You to Read This Reading for This Upcoming Weekend
Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.
For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
Gospel: Mark 1:29-39
As soon as [Jesus and the disciples] left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Register Your Wheels Now
Summer is kicking off with an Ice Cream Social & Wheels Show.
Join us Friday, June 2nd from 6:30pm-8:30pm for the Ice Cream Social.
Sign up to bring your wheels at www.bit.ly/SOTPwheels23 . They can have 4 or 3 or 2 wheels, maybe someone even has a unicycle!?!?
The best decorated kid’s wheels will win a prize.
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We will also have games, relays, face painting, an ice cream Pinata, and lots of fun!
Let us know you’re coming – register at www.bit.ly/SOTPsocial23
Contact: Jill Gillming jill@sotpmail.com
For more information on how to donate altar flowers, go to www.bit.ly/SOTPflower
Contact: Diane Mollis dem910@outlook.com
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By Donna Kelly
April 2025 – Matthew 23:37-39
As Matthew tells the story of Jesus during the last week of his life (we call it Holy Week), Jesus is often in the Temple courtyards teaching the people. The religious leaders work to set traps for him; asking questions that they believe no matter how Jesus answers, he can either be accused of treason against Rome or turn the people away from following him. But each time he surprises them with his answers. He sees what they are up to and spends several chapters calling them out.
But in verses 37-39, Jesus shows his love for the people of Jerusalem. He has come to show them the way to peace, God’s way of love and justice. He knows that if they don’t follow him, Jerusalem id facing certain doom. He tells them he has wanted to “gather them “under his wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks”. The people were looking for a strong warrior to lead them in a righteous rebellion against Rome. The picture God offers here is one of a protective mother hen, yearning for her chicks to come to her for safety and protection. Yet the people of Jerusalem aren’t looking for that kind of God; they were looking for a strong warrior to lead them in a righteous rebellion against Rome. Jerusalem couldn’t see the way Jesus laid out for them.
And sometimes, you and I are Jerusalem. Often, we are blind and deaf to the promises of God and closed off to the future. It comes as a result of our hanging onto and defining ourselves by past hurts, guilt or losses and refusing to look into ourselves or considering something new for our lives. We can find we are Jerusalem-like when we are suspicious and cynical and when we circle the wagons, draw lines in the sand or refuse to welcome others who see things differently than we do. It occurs when we let fear overwhelm us and allow power, security, control and self-sufficiency to become our principal values. It’s what lies behind our refusal to listen to others and when we believe that our way is not only the best way, but the only way or when we allow structure, rule or law to become the ends rather than the means.
Matthew invites us to contemplate Jesus as a mother hen whose chicks don’t want her. Her wings are empty. She is a mother bereft, struggling with futility. At the moment, all Jesus could see were chicks scurrying off in the opposite direction, taking no notice of the approaching danger, nor of the urgent warnings of the one who longed to give them and us safety.
The good news of life in Christ is that he is always coming to us, in thousands of ways, every moment of every day. The promises have, do now, and will always remain. God never runs out of room under his wings and never, ever gives up on us. Jesus will always be waiting for us to reopen our hearts, and be ready and willing to say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Donna Kelly
email Donna at: donna@sotpmail.com
