Easter Egg Hunt at St. James

St. James invites all kids to join us at our annual Easter Egg Hunt on the afternoon of Palm Sunday, April 1, at 3PM. Refreshments will be served. Join us for an exciting time of celebrating the risen Lord Jesus.

Give Blood

The American Red Cross will be in the Fellowship Hall at St. James on Monday, March 26, from 2PM-7PM. Please joing us in giving the gift of life this Lenten season.

Lowman Home Luncheon at St. James

The Women of the ELCA at St. James are hosting guests from the Lowman Home for a luncheon in our fellowship hall on Saturday, March 24, at 12PM. They will enjoy food, fellowship, and music provided by our God Rockz handbell choir.

Jamming This Winter

The St. James Youth Group had an awesome time at Winter Jam this month, with hundreds of other Christians across Columbia. They enjoyed the music of Skillet, Sanctus Real, Kari Jobe, Peter Furler, Building 429, Group 1 Crew, and Newsong. What a powerful way to worship God alongside fellow believers! Next month, they are planning to be a part of our churchwide prayer vigil, attend a USC Baseball Game together, plan and carry out worship for a Youth Sunday at church, and do a service project on our upcoming Operation Inasmuch Day at the end of April. God is alive and at work in the hearts of the youth at St. James.

Lenten Bible Study

Throughout the 40 days of Lent, our congregation has enjoyed Bible study and weekly devotional readings based on Max Lucado's Outlive Your Life. In this study, we have read through the first 12 chapters of Acts and have learned about how our calling is the same as that of the early church, to share the gospel through love and service. We hope to "outlive" our lives, sharing the gifts God has given us, and making a difference in this world so that all may know the love of Christ in us.

Ministry in 2012

Since the beginning of 2012, St. James has been hard at work doing ministry. In January, our Social Ministry Committee began working hard to build a food pantry in the back of our fellowship hall with much more shelving than our former food pantry and a bigger space to hold more canned goods for the many needy people in our community.

In a related effort, our Youth had a lock-in and collected 970 canned goods to help fill our bigger food pantry, which was close to empty. Our youth also had a bake sale, soup sale, and loose change collection, which helped them to raise money which would enable us to continue to keep our food pantry full.

Our church is continually collecting canned goods to feed the hungry people in our area. If you have any canned goods that you would like to donate, please drop them off in our office during our open hours Mon-Thurs, 9AM-2PM. May God continue to work through the Food Pantry Ministry here at St. James as we share the love of Christ with all who are in need.

Lutheran Groups at St. James

On January 30, the Lutheran Men in Mission had their quarterly Saxe-Gotha Conference Gathering here at St. James. Wow! What a crowd we had. We welcomed guest speaker, Doug Haugen.

Our Women of the ELCA also met that evening, and made plans for the many different ways in which they will serve people in our congregation and in the community this year. One of those ways is through their annual dinner they provide free of charge to USC students, which will take place in February.

Our Lutheran Girls met on January 14. Their focus this month was on the story of Queen Esther. They had a class in makeup that was based on the story of Esther, and they also received charm bracelets that had charms for each of the skills they have learned this past year.

What fun it is to be Lutheran, and to work and learn together as we share the good news of Jesus Christ in this world!