You are invited to read the latest about St. Jacob Lutheran Church and our activities

The Pentecost season is here  We had an exciting red Day of Pentecost and then had a wonderful wonderful wonderful Trinity Sunday.  How great to think about the power and the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  June 4th was also a special day because of Pastor Hout’s 70th birthday and Dale Schram’s 101st birthday.  They really appreciated the cake and the nice celebration at St. Jacob.
 

A busy time around these parts  Seems like a lot of things have been happening around here.  Our softball team is in first place.  We had a baptism (John Thomas Wantz) and a wedding (Jonathan and Sara Steingass).  Pastor Hout also had two funerals recently: Phyllis Poffenberger and Melvin Johnson.  Yes, it has been a busy time and you can read all about it in our monthly newsletter “The Bell.”
 

Holy Hilarity Sunday was fun  We enjoyed celebrating the joy of the resurrection with some humor, some funny stories and some laughs.  It was quite a change from Holy Week with Palm Sunday services, Maundy Thursday service and our Good Friday service.  We are thankful for this season of Easter where we can continue to celebrate all the excitement.  We had colorful Easter Sunday services.  It was a busy time around these parts.  We also had an Easter breakfast and an egg hunt for the little ones.  He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!!!
 

Our annual Lenten Fair was very special  Many thanks to all who joined us for this fun hands on educational event.  Despite the snow, cold and time change, we had solid attendance and a number of visitors.  This special time together was full of exciting things to do and eat that tie in with the many significant symbols of Lent.
 

Thank God for Lent Ash Wednesday was the 22nd and that went well for us.  We are finishing up our midweek worship services at 7pm with soup suppers each week at 6pm.  You are invited to join us for both of these events.  The theme for our Lenten services is “Stories Behind Our Hymns.”  We have already talked about the hymns Just as I am,  Nearer My God to Thee, O God our Help in Ages Past and Abide with Me.  Please join us on our Lenten journey.  Of course, our Sunday worship services continue on at 10:30 and noon.
 

An Exciting Souper Bowl The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles put on a good show and it was an exciting game.  Many people at St. Jacob were excited about the game and, even better, excited about helping the hungry.  We have done a lot over the years on this day to gather cans of food, collect donations for Helping Hands and to send off checks for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.  We are so thankful for this time to  remember the hungry on Souper Bowl Sunday.
 

Congregational meeting  Every year on the third Sunday of January we have our annual meeting and make plans for another year here at 213 E. Central Avenue.  Our 2023 meeting went well on the 15th.  We are looking forward to another bold and exciting year.
 

Christmas Eve worship services  It was cold and snowy out but we did have our annual Christmas eve worship services at 7:30 and 11:00.  Maybe our attendance was not what it has been in the past but we had a number of dedicated folks at both services singing praises to the newborn king and giving thanks for the new hope thanks to the birth of our Savior.  Many thanks go to all our musicians at the 7:30 service and to our adult choir at the 11:00 service.  Now that we are in 2023, we can say happy new year to all.
 

Sunday School Christmas Program  We had a great time at our annual Sunday School Christmas program.  It all started out with a wonderful meal prepared by so many people from the congregation.  We then headed upstairs for another fine production written by Dr. Marcia Vannet.  It was under the direction of Emmy Schultz.  Many thanks to the many who were a part of the production and many thanks to the many who worked behind the scenes to make sure it all went so smoothly.
 

Funeral service for Dick Church  Dick loved this city and loved this church.  It was an honor to have his funeral here on December the 14th.  He loved a good story and there were certainly a lot of good stories shared that day.
 

Miamisburg Holiday Celebration  It was a busy time around here for the annual city holiday celebration and parade.  Our fellowship area, known as Albrecht Hall, was full of all kinds of Christmas items and there still are a number of items left.  People came from all over to check out our bazaar.  We were also a part of the community parade that Saturday.  We are happy to report that went well and there wasn’t any rain!!!
 

Thanksgiving time was amazing here at St. Jacob  We had our annual community night of giving thanks.  How great to have representatives here from six different congregations.  Three pastors led the service and it was great to have a joint choir once again.  Our Thanksgiving Day meal was the 24th and it will was so great to be all together again in our Albrecht Hall.  Can you believe we served over 400 meals?  There were so many great and wonderful volunteers.  Many thanks to each and every one of them and big big big thanks to our event organizer Dawn Warrick.
 

Reformation and a special sermon  How great it was to be able to remember the history of the Protestant Church and to hear a dialogue sermon between Martin Luther and his wife Katie.  They were real people who were involved in real sacrifices.  It was good to look back and remember their lives.
 

Congregational hayride  We have had a lot of bad weather with our hayrides over the past couple decades.......but not this year!!!  The weather was tremendous and we had a wonderful time at the Warrick Farm.  They have added so many wonderful things and the classic campfire and hayride were excellent.  We will remember hayride 2022 for a long time.  We are already talking about our hayride in 2023!!!
 

Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away  We had some guests with us this past Sunday.  They were from the Spring Fest committee and they shared their “rocks of kindness” with us.  How great to see so many of our people painting rocks and making creative creations for our picnic table area and more.  We are keeping this activity going with some of our high school youth and they want to make a difference with it in our community.
 

Rally Day  We really rallied behind our Sunday School a couple weeks ago.  We put up a bunch of balloons and they are still up in our Albrecht Hall.  We also had quite a bit of singing, clapping and more.  It was a great morning.  We also was plenty of train activity after worship as people gathered around the miniature rails for “train gang.”
 

Labor day and Holiday at Home parade  We surely looked good and uniform with our orange shirts in Kettering for the annual HAH parade.  Fourteen St. Jacob people dared to show up even though it was supposed to be raining.  As it all turned out, we did not have rain and it was a great day for us and the hundreds in the parade and the thousands along the parade route.  How great to have so many people helping with the banner and riding unicycles and all kinds of other high wheel bikes.  Some people took pictures and sent them to Pastor Hout’s son in North Carolina!  He sent them back to us in Miamisburg!!  So we ended up with some wonderful shots of our group within hours of the parade!!!
 

Miamisburg is tops and so is St. Jacob.  We just finished hosting our 23rd annual top spinning festival.  What a great weekend.  The national championships were also held here!!!  How great to have so many adults here from all over and a boatload of kids from 5-7.  Can you believe people were here from New York, Wisconsin, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Canada and even Philippines?!?!?!
 

Some recent activity  We have had several exciting weeks with Christmas in July and the baptism of Wilbur Samuel Bruns.  How exciting to see this little two pound baby  growing so well in size and in God’s grace. 
 

Day Camp was great!!!  It was just a month ago on July 18-22.  We met from  5:45 until 8:30 each evening that week.  How great it was to learn about God’s boundless goodness, boundless love, boundless welcome, boundless forgiveness and boundless generosity.
 

Co-ed softball What a great year it was for St. Jacob.  Despite all the rainouts, we were able to get the full season in.  We did not win the tournament but we won both sides of a double-header at the end of the season to finish 9-1 and win the regular season championship.  We celebrated with a big trophy presentation at the 10:30 worship service.  What an exciting year, despite all the rain!!!
 

Welcome to St. Jacob little Wilbur Bruns  We asked eight year old Aubrey Gibson if she remembered her first Sunday at St. Jacob.  Of course, she couldn’t because she was so young and still growing to add to her 2 pound 2 ounce weight at birth.  All the adults remember her first Sunday, though, as we had been praying for her for many weeks and were so happy to celebrate that moment.  Just last week we had another big day for the family of God as little Wilbur Burns had his first Sunday at St. Jacob.  We have been praying for quite some time for this day as he has steadily grown from his 2 pound 14 ounce birth weight!!!
 

A Powerful Pentecost Sunday and a Happy Hundredth Birthday  People are still talking about this amazing day on the first Sunday of June.  We had so much great red in our worship space with geraniums and banners and balloons.  All of that represented the fire of the Holy Spirit.  The worship service was great and then we had a special meal and celebration for the 100th birthday of Dale Schram.  How amazing....and then he sang for us just like George Burns.
 

Miamisburg Spring Fest  It sure was great to see so many people downtown for our Spring Fest in the Burg.  It was a wonderful event even despite some rain.  We enjoyed being in the parade with our St. Jacob unit.  Many thanks to all our people who helped out that day.
 

Affirmation of Baptism - Confirmation Sunday  It was a great day on Sunday, May 15th as a group of four youth made a public profession of their faith.  They also finished the oral part of their final exam in front of the congregation!!!  It was a great day for St. Jacob and a great day for Katie Roush, Lizzie Roush, Sophie Roush and also Veronica Tharp.  Read more about them on our outdoor sign.  Our prayers are with them as they continue to grow in God’s grace.
 

Happy Mother’s day and more  We hope all the mothers around had a great day and will continue to have many more great days.  We honored our mothers in the congregation by handing out carnations to them during the children’s sermon this past Sunday.
 

We had a fun Holy Humor Sunday and now it is time for shepherd Sunday!!!  Yes, the season of Lent is over with our many midweek services and Holy Week with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.  How great to be in the season of Easter.  Our tradition is to have a Holy Humor Sunday on the second Sunday of Easter and we kept that tradition alive in 2022.  What a great time to remember that the biggest practical joke in all of history was played on Satan when the tomb was found to be empty.  Pastor Hout told jokes while playing the piano this year for his Holy Hilarity Sunday sermon.
 

We had an inspiring Lenten season  We appreciate everyone’s help with our midweek soup suppers and our Lenten worship services.  Our theme this year was “The stories behind our hymns.”  We talked about Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, Precious Lord Take My Hand, It is Well with My Soul, Beneath the Cross of Jesus and Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.
 

Christmas Eve worship services  We had a good evening on the 24th with two worship services.  Many thanks to Sidney Wagner for her 30 minutes of organ music before each service.  Many thanks to those who sang in the adult choir.  It sure was good to have them back with us again.  Many thanks to those who shared special music at the early service.  Many thanks to all who donated poinsettias.  There were certainly a lot of them.  And, of course, many thanks to all who helped in so many other ways by decorating the sanctuary and more.  It was a good night, despite some virus concerns.  At least we were able to spread out comfortably.
 

Sunday School Christmas program  What a night it was for all our youth and adults.  It was so exciting to see so many children involved.  And what a nice crowd of adults.  We had some great music from the Schultz trio and the Triplet trio.  The program itself was terrific with lots of great acting and singing.  Many thanks to Andy Schultz and Amanda Greenlee for all their fine leadership.  We also had a very fine carry-in meal before the program.  Yummmmmm.
 

Miamisburg Holiday Fest  It was a big weekend.  How great to once again have a parade in Miamisburg.  St. Jacob was honored to be in that parade with a nice group of participants.  Can you believe a friend came back all the way from college in Michigan to unicycle with us?  We also had a very busy bazaar back at the church with hundreds of Christmas items for sale.  Nearly $500 was raised from that event.  Now we are just about ready to have our Sunday School Christmas program.
 

Thanksgiving time  It was a busy time around this place!!!  We had a great community thanksgiving worship service at St. Henry Catholic Church on Sunday evening.  Then we had a very successful Thanksgiving Day meal here from 12:30-2:30.  340 meals were prepared and shared.  We even had food left over and shared that with the shelter up at St. Vincent Depaul in Dayton.  Many many thanks to the many people who worked so hard to make all of this happen.  Special thanks go to Dawn Warrick for her help in organizing everything.
 

All Saints Sunday  We made it through our annual All Saints worship service where we remember so many who have done so much for us.  It is a touching service.  Our prayers are with the family and friends of Fred Hoskins, Elroy Miller, Scott DeYoung, Judy Lankford, Loueda Schultz, Karen Pompos, Quillard Abney, Helen Glenn, Linda Hippert and Jane Barlett.  All Saints Sunday is a great day to think of the saints who have gone before us, the saints who are with us now and the saints who are yet to be.
 

Our giant steeple  Over the years, St. Jacob has been very proud of their very tall  steeple.  Sadly, it was discovered that there has been some weather damage up there.  A group of expert steeplejacks came and worked hard at repairing the damaged areas and getting us ready for our 201st year of ministry here in Miamisburg.  It looks like they have done a wonderful job!!!
 

Capital idea  Every baptism is special but Pastor Hout was especially pleased with the recent baptism of Noah Luther Thompson.  Not only does he have a great name but his parents are both graduates of Capital University.  There were a number of others at the baptism who were Cap grads so there was a wonderful photo opp after service with all the Crusaders.......and a picture with a giant purple Capital University flag.
 

A full page picture in the Dayton Daily News!!!  We have been so fortunate with our parade unit.  It has given us lots of good exercise and good publicity.  Yet, nothing matches what happened on the first Friday in September.  We opened the paper to the GO section and there, on the front page, was a full giant picture of our unit!  It took up the entire page and they were using it to promote the Holiday at Home Parade.  By the way, the parade went well for us as we had a good unit and wonderful weather.
 

Our big 200th celebration was great  We had one worship service at 10:30 and we had the terrific music of the Paragon Quartet.  We also had the powerful preaching of our Southern Ohio bishop, Rev. Suzanne Dillahunt.  We worked hard to get ready for this 200th celebration and it paid off.  How wonderful to have the leadership of former Mayor Dick Church for this special day.  We also had special 200th t-shirts, hats and collared shirts made.  They look great!!!
 

Day Camp 2021 was fantastic  How wonderful to be able to look back and have great memories of our Day Camp.  We worked hard to have fun music, inspirational tunes, crafty crafts, thrilling games, humorous skits, tasty snacks and more.  It was also great to highlight our music and activities in Sunday worship.  The kids were great at sharing special music.

We are celebrating our 200th year  St. Jacob has seen a lot in its two hundred years.  We have amazing stories to tell.  We have highlighted our first five pastors (we have had twelve so we will remember one a month) and also recently remembered our 14 members who have gone on to become ministers of word and sacrament.  Each Sunday this year we will try to highlight some more of our history.  We have a St. Jacob song, a St. Jacob poem and each month we will talk about one of our pastors.  There are amazing stories here.  Did you know we have a member who was baptized here 98 years ago, a member who was baptized in the river and three baptized members who were on the first NFL football team, the Dayton Triangles?
 

Christmas Eve worship services went well  We had services at 7:30 and 11:00 with great organ music prior to each.  How exciting it was to have safe face to face worship in the midst of this crazy pandemic.  We had people from a number of other Lutheran congregations attend.  We also had our services online for folks at home.  We are sorry that we did not have some of our regular  activities during this time of the year.  We missed our big Miamisburg Holiday Fest and the parade.  We missed our Sunday School Christmas program.  We missed the Miamisburg Community Chorus Christmas concert.  Thankfully, we will not miss any caroling as groups are going out to do this.
 

Thanksgiving Day meal  We have been doing this for a quarter of a century.  This year was different, though, as we dealt with the pandemic.  Can you believe we gave out food for nearly 400 meals?  All our meals were delivered or “to go”.  We were happy to serve so many fine people on the 26th.
 

Community Thanksgiving worship service went well despite everything.  We did not have the biggest crowd but we sure had a good time giving thanks to our Lord and God for our many blessings.
 

Reformation Sunday  This past Sunday was a special time in the life of the Church.  It was Reformation Sunday and a great time to review some of the amazing actions taken some 500 years ago to reform the church.  We also had some fun singing the Reformation Polka!!!
 

Congregational meeting  It was good to get so many people out for our annual October congregational meeting when we talk about the budget and other key items.  The meeting was done as safely as possible with the budget and other items already in the bulletin and everyone keeping a good social distance with their masks on.
 

We miss our Sunday School  Usually at this time of the year we have had Rally Day and more for our Sunday School.  Sadly, the pandemic has really held us back in this area.  We look forward to one day getting together again for Sunday School before our 10:30 and noon worship services.
 

Our top fest was tops  This was our 21st year of hosting a top festival in Miamisburg and it was our most difficult.  The weather was supposed to be good but we had a giant rain storm right when youth were supposed to arrive.  Between that and the pandemic, we really had everything working against us.  We may not have had a large group, but we had a fun and lively set of people.  It ended up being one fine day and we even had people traveling here all the way from Wisconsin.  We also had Eisenhower dollar coins to give away!!!  There was a lot of great spinning and many tops were given away.  People are already asking about 2021.
 

We are into our third month of face to face worship  And we are so excited to see everyone again.  The empty pews were hard on Pastor Hout.  We had some fun recently with Christmas hymns, red and green and more as we celebrated Christmas in July.  We even had an ordination on the first Sunday in August.  There were sure a lot of red balloons here for that day.  Many congratulations to Pastor Chris Boyd!!!  We continue to do what we can with social distancing and masks and hand sanitizer and more as we try to not pass along this corona virus.  We have to report that we recently had puppets for a children’s sermon but they were rebels as they did not socially distance themselves.  Can you believe we had two baptisms just a few weeks ago?  Our prayers are with Cheyenna Grace Helton and Norah Faith Helton.  Our prayers are also with Eric Justin Combs who was also baptized recently.
 

Easter is over and Pentecost is here  We made it through the season of Lent, despite all the corona virus COVID-19 problems and now we have made it through the season of Easter.  We have done all we can to keep things going with online worship services at stjacob.net.  Many thanks to Andy Schultz for all his work in these productions.  Our Lenten theme this year was “Great Worship Spaces.”  We talked about great church buildings in the U.S., in the U.K., in Germany, in France, and in Italy.  During Holy Week we talked about Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper painting on Maundy Thursday.  That is located at Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.  We also had Good Friday and Easter services.  Thanks for following us online through all of that!!!
 

Lenten Fair was cancelled  We really hoped to have this event but we cancelled it in light of all the health concerns.  This ends a more than four decade Lenten Fair tradition at St. Jacob.  Maybe we can turn this great educational event into an Easter Fair or a Pentecost fair?
 

Thrivent Wealth Management/Charitable Giving Seminar We had a good meeting
this past Sunday following the worship services.  The snacks were terrific and the information shared was even more terrific.
 

Souper Bowl Sunday  It was a good day to remember more than a football game.
We love the opportunity to not forget the hungry.  We have helped a lot of people in our congregation, in our community and in our world.  Can you believe we have taken over 1500 items to Pleasant Green Baptist Church in Trotwood?  They are so thankful as they are working hard to help people with tornado relief.  You can join our efforts and the help of Mound Elementary by donating cans of food for our food pantry, by donating cash for food donations or by writing a check for the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.
 

Read about our pipe organ Here is an interesting bit about our pipe organ:
http://organsociety.bsc.edu/SingleOrganDetails.php?OrganID=31371

AND BELOW IS SOME MORE INFORMATION ABOUT US: Our parish is located in the Southern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Read more about what's happening in our synod at the Synod Home Page

St. Jacob is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (the ELCA). Read more about it at the ELCA Website

The ELCA also has a very fine magazine. Check it out at The Lutheran€�

Our softball and volleyball team plays Monday nights with the Miamisburg Churches.

We have a Lenten fair each March with lots of great ”hands on”€� learning!