One of our congregational leaders asked Pastor Albers recently, “What is it that Deaconess Michele does?” He sat down recently and just asked her!

Pastor: How long have you been in ministry here at St. John’s?  It seems like it’s been forever, but it’s only been a few months, right?

Deaconess Michele: I’ve been here for 8 months already. It does feel like it’s been a long time but it’s been flying by in the best way! It’s hard to believe I’m already about 3/4ths of the way through my one-year term.

Pastor: So, what have you been up to in the last eight months? What’s been your favorite part of ministry at St. John’s?

Deaconess Michele: It has been wonderful getting to become part of the St. John’s community and getting to know so many awesome families. My favorite part has been getting to know people even better through Bible studies. I get to lead a women’s study on Tuesday mornings, and attend WOW on Wednesdays for a few weeks, and I get to join your Sunday morning study when I’m able to. These have been great opportunities to dig deeper into Scripture, but especially to get to know one another better as we learn about and support one another. 

Pastor: But you do more than just lead a weekly Bible study, right?

Deaconess Michele: Yes, I get to do visitations to St. John’s homebound members! (These are the folks that can’t join us at worship in person, or are living in some level of assisted-living facility.) I have gotten to know many wonderful people, and learn even more from them about St. John’s community and history as they share their stories. We also get to pray together and sometimes I’m able to bring a devotion or short study to talk about, too. 

I think it has worked well for me to visit these folks, while also organizing when you visit them to bring communion. Plus the elders also assist in sharing love and care for them; bringing Portals of Prayer or by helping to mailing cards from the students and the church community. I’m glad St. John’s is able to have multiple points of contact with each person, as oftentimes they get very few social or personal visits beyond medical check-ins.

Pastor: I go to every worship service at St. John’s, so I see you all the time in worship, but some may have missed you. How often are you in worship with us?

Deaconess Michele: I worship here, at one of the services, every other weekend. I am trying to balance attending worship here with also attending at St. Peter (in Portage) where I’m a member and my husband is pastor. It’s important that I attend my home church in Portage and get to support my husband and be around to hear his Bible study or sermon. But, it’s also important that I attend St. John’s, in order to be part of this community and get to engage with people. The tricky part is that I love both communities, which is a wonderful ‘problem’ to wrestle with.

Pastor: Some may have missed that your husband is a pastor. Pastor Brian is getting ready to celebrate an anniversary, right?

Deaconess Michele: Yes, May 5th will be one year since his installation in Portage! This past year has been flying by, but we just bought our new house in February and are slowly getting unpacked. We are excited to get settled in and deepen our roots in NW Indiana! This is our sixth move in 7 years of marriage, so we are really excited to be settling down in one spot and staying put for a while!

Pastor: Let’s get back to St. John’s … what else have you been up to?

Deaconess Michele: Each week I work on keeping the congregation in-the-know of activities and plans, sometimes this just means updating announcements in the outsert or the slides that show before and after service. But often, this means overseeing the newsletters, both print and online. At the end of this month I’ll be preparing the May online newsletter, then quickly switch to formatting and helping create the May print newsletter that we’ll mail out, and then I’ll be getting information prepared for the June online newsletter. My goal has been to keep the newsletters going out regularly, so that folks continue to get current information about both the church and school news.

Pastor: Absolutely, I really love putting together newsletters, but other things always seemed to get in my way and they were often published well past our deadline.  But I remember when you came to St. John’s the big thing we talked about was “integration.” Bring me up-to-date on those efforts.

Deaconess Michele: Integration is an important, and continuous, factor in a church community. It takes intentionality to help a church – a group of people who are from different generations, backgrounds, expectations, and involvement – become a unified community. It’s also not something that changes rapidly. 

My first few months with St. John’s were spent getting to know the community better, and I have continued to be intentional about looking for ways that this community can become more integrated or strengthen and build off the ways where we are already doing that well.

We really are just getting started with what’s possible! We are blessed to have several new school families who are regularly attending worship. And I’ve noticed the conversations about integration have increased as more people are looking for ways they can be part of strengthening their piece of our community!

Pastor: So, what’s the plan going forward? I keep forgetting your call is a “termed call” and is scheduled to end in just a few months.

Deaconess Michele: Since our plan has always been to wait until after Easter to discuss what happens next, I’ve just been focusing on the work that’s in front of me. I look forward to talking about what is next for St. John’s, and seeing what work God has in store for me and for St. John’s various ministries!