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Small Group Ministries:
In addition to our vibrant and healthy worship life, LCHS is host to numerous small groups. Our small group ministries provide places where issues of faith and life can be challenged and we can be encouraged for witness and service to our community. In small groups, we have the opportunity to experience the risen Lord Jesus, and participate in the Christian tradition in ways that challenge personal belief, energizes for mission, stimulates intellectually and spiritually, and encourages us to focus on the wider ministry of the church. At the same time our small groups help to build relationships that are warm, close, and mutually encouraging. Since genuine care and concern are an integral part of these gatherings, we discover that we can pray and express the deepest realities of our lives in ways that we might not experience while alone, or even in the context of Sunday morning worship. Small group settings, unlike large, gathered assemblies, provide the framework where genuine love and companionship is given room to flourish and grow. Our small groups help us to see that our ministry together is a matter of partnership, hospitable sharing, and compassionate caring for one another. Our current list of small groups include:
1. church council
2. choir
3. hand bell choir
4. fellowship committee
5. Sunday school classes
6. adult forum
7. Via de Cristo reunion group
8. weekly lay lead Bible studies
9. Women of Spirit Bible study
10. Men’s bible study
11. women’s bible study X 2
12. Destiny Al-Anon (Sunday 12:00)
13. Happy Hour Sunday A. A. (12:0)
14. Serenity A. A. (Friday evenings 7:00)
15. NA 12 Step group – Wednesday nights at 7:00
16. Financial Peace University
17. Casas por Cristo group
18. Early Friday bulletin folders
19. Late Friday bulletin folders
20. newsletter folders
21. altar guild
22. garage sale committee
23. worship & music committee
24. progressive dinner
25. Thursday evening youth group
26. middle school youth groupies
27. spirit quilters
28. Lost Lutherans
29. confirmation school & mentoring
30. stewardship committee
31. local community projects
32. men’s bowling
33. ?
Outreach/Mission
More than one pundit has noted that the days of cultural Christianity have forever disappeared into the murky bog of history. While some lament this, and pine for those glory days of yesteryear when the Church was seen as an institution of social power and prestige, we at LCHS find the collapse of cultural Christianity to be exciting and alive with possibility. Think of it, today, as rarely before, we are challenged with the opportunity to enter into partnership with the God who raised Jesus from the dead, recapturing some of the exciting and adventuresome spirit so intimately connected with the church of the first century. A verdant future stretches out before our congregation inviting us to engage the unique challenges of our time, namely, the willingness to express the radical hospitality of Jesus in thought, word, and deed. As people of God, we have been and are even now being shaped by the living and life-giving Word that opens us to diversity and new opportunity. It is this very diversity that enriches us. Though the journey may be long, and at times uncertain, there is no need to be afraid. Our Lutheran heritage helps us to speak a powerful word of hope in the midst of the journey because we trust that there is one who has gone before us, through the grave and showing us the way into whatever future awaits.
Following is a list of just some of the outreach ministry opportunities we are participating in as a congregation:
1. The Gathering Place, a home for abused and battered women.
2. Gateway Shelter, a shelter very similar to The Gathering Place.
3. The Betela Seminary in Madagascar, a part of our sister synod.
4. Inter Faith Task Force, a local food and clothing bank.
5. Denver Rescue Mission, a ministry to the inner city homeless.
6. Denver Inner City Parish, a ministry to inner city poor.
7. Navajo Indian Mission, a ministry to the Navajo tribe of northern New Mexico.
8. Lakota Indian Mission, a ministry to the Lakota Sioux tribe of South Dakota.
9. Oaks Indian Mission, a ministry to the Cherokee Nation of eastern Oklahoma.
10. Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp, an outdoor/camping ministry of the Rocky Mountain Synod.
11. Lutheran World Relief, an organization that provides food, clothing, educational resources, and financial assistance to those in need around the world.
12. Urban Servant Corps, an inner city ministry to the urban poor of Denver.
13. Lutheran Family Services, a pan Lutheran organization that assists with adoption, marital conflict counseling, and resource assistance to congregations.
14. Lutheran Refugee Services
15. Mission Partners, a ministry assisting new mission congregations.
16. Casas por Cristo (Juarez, Mexico)
17. Habitat for Humanity
18. Good Shepherd Lutheran Homes
19. Gleaning Project (gathering leftover fruits and vegetables from harvested fields to be given to an area cannery, which then disperses the produce to local food banks.
20. The Angel Tree (a service project that gathers clothing and other needed household items for families designated by the Denver Rescue Mission).
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