The Wartburg Parish council met Monday evening, Jan. 25 at St. John’s Bremen. We had the opportunity to meet and welcome our new parish treasurer, Melissa Wettig. Melissa is hard at work setting up the financial structure of the parish. The 1st round of pastoral rotations are complete and went well. We are looking forward to the second round on the weekend of February 6 and 7. Also, Parish Lenten services have been scheduled (see below) and we are hopeful that members of parish congregations who are able will be able to join us for these.

The Wartburg Parish becomes an official organization on March 1, 2010. In celebration of this we look forward to a Service of Celebration with communion on April 25, 2010, to be held at Peace Lutheran Church in Steeleville. Bishop Freiheit will preach and the service will include the installation of officers and council members. Following the service we plan a special reception in the Peace Fellowship Hall. In order to plan this we need two members of each Parish congregation to serve on a fellowship committee for the express job of planning this reception. If you are interested please contact your parish council representative.

One of the things that we hope to do is to plan a variety to joint ministry activities. This includes activities for youth. We would like one adult member of each parish congregation to meet as an ad hoc parish youth committee to start brainstorming ideas for joint youth programs.

We are still accepting submissions for the Wartburg Parish logo and letterhead. We will begin to work to establish a Mutual Ministry committee, consisting of the pastors and one member from each parish congregation. They will organize in May. There was also discussion of Sunday pastoral supply and the protocol for pastoral care emergencies in the event that the congregation’s primary pastor is unavailable. These will be discussed at a future council meeting.

Finally the next meeting of the council will take place on Monday evening, Feb. 22 at St. Peter’s in Wine Hill.