Pastor’s Corner

Save the dates for these upcoming events:

Saturday, July 6 – Parsonage Painting at 8 AM – Please contact the church office at 630-553-7335 if you would like to volunteer.

Sunday, August 4 – Kendall County Fair Worship Service at 9:30 AM on the Family Stage – There will be no Cross Kids or 10:45 AM worship service at Cross.

Weekend of August 17-18 – Blessing of the Backpacks, Teacher Re-dedication and Installation of Paul Goffron as Interim Principal

Weekend of August 24-25 – Installation of Will LeBeau as Youth Minister

Friday, August 30 – Hometown Days Concert – Building 429 and Cloverton – 6:15 PM at Beecher Community Park in Yorkville

Pastor’s Corner

Paul Goffron’s Acceptance Letter

Dear Families of Cross Lutheran Church and School,

I am truly humbled and excited to accept the position of Interim Principal at Cross Lutheran School.  It has been a blessing to meet your senior staff, Call Committee, school faculty, and student body over the past two months.  Through interpersonal interactions, classroom observations, and brief, yet meaningful, discussions with members of the student body it was apparent to me that the Holy Spirit is alive and very active at Cross Lutheran Church and School.

As I weighed my options over the past several weeks, the “nudge” of our Heavenly Father became clearer, and I knew that I wanted to continue to serve Him and His children as part of the ministry here at Cross Lutheran.  As your educational leader, I will strive to be a Christ-centered, servant leader who puts the students and their spiritual, academic, and emotional well-being at the forefront of every decision.  I intend to collaborate regularly with members of the senior staff, the school faculty, the student body, and school parents.  Finally, I will be very intentional to communicate regularly and effectively with all stakeholders of Cross Lutheran School.

Once again, I am excited and eager to begin my journey as a Cross Crusader, and I pray that we have the opportunity to meet in person in the very near future.  I pray for God’s continued blessings on this great church and school community.

Serving Him,

Paul A. Goffron 

Paul Goffron’s Biography 

Mr. Goffron has been teaching and serving in Lutheran education for 14 years.  In 2005, he graduated from Valparaiso University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a minor in Spanish.  One month after graduation, he began Valparaiso University’s LEAPs graduate program where he would earn a Master’s degree in Education, an initial teaching licensure, and gain two years of teaching experience in an inner-city Lutheran school.  Mr. Goffron was placed at Jehovah Lutheran School in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood where he taught and coached for three years.  In 2008, he began his first of four years at Walther Lutheran Academy in Forest Park where he taught 5^th-6^th grade, was athletic director, and coached multiple sports.  After completing his Master of School Leadership program at Concordia University Chicago in 2012, Mr. Goffron began his seven-year administrative tenure at Walther Christian Academy as Dean of Students.  He also taught Spanish I and was the head coach for boys’ and girls’ cross country and boys’ track and field.  From 2013-2015, Mr. Goffron held the administrative roles of Assistant Principal and also spent one year as Athletic Director.  He became Principal at Walther in July 2016 and held that position through the completion of this past school year.

Mr. Goffron currently resides in Lombard, Illinois with his lovely wife of 11 years, Dawn, and two energetic sons, Bryce (5) and Shane (3).  His family and he are members at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Lombard where his boys also attend school.  Mr. Goffron enjoys spending time playing at parks with his sons, running, drinking coffee, and studying the weather.

Note from Pastor Erik Gauss

Paul will begin his ministry here at Cross on July 1, 2019.  He will need to get acclimated to our facilities and procedures, as well as our school software programs and the like.  He will determine the best ways to get to know the staff and the families over his first few weeks and months.  We will officially commission Paul the weekend of August 17-18, along with the Blessing of the Backpacks and the re-dedication of the school staff!

Pastor’s Corner

Trinity

Why would we use a made-up word to describe the most important thing in the universe?  Some have said that describing God with a fake word means God must be fake.  The Mormon church has said the Christian church teaches false doctrine because the word Trinity never shows up in the Bible!  You wouldn’t think one word could matter so much, but it does.

This weekend is Trinity Sunday.  Trinity Sunday is a day where we pause to consider the amazing and at times incomprehensible nature of God.  The word Trinity is a made-up word, but it is necessary to use because no other word is adequate enough to describe God.  The word Trinity was devised to allow the nature of God as He describes Himself in the Bible, to be unique from all other descriptions of God.

God describes Himself as one God, clearly and emphatically.  The Jews were unique among all people for worshipping one God (monotheistic) when the world around them worshipped many gods.  In addition unique attributes of God, like being part of creation, are given to Jesus.  Jesus says He is not the Father, but He is “one with” the Father.  Jesus is also killed by the Jews for claiming to be God, which is the definition of blasphemy, even though Jesus never claimed to be the Father.

The Trinity is difficult to understand and teach because it doesn’t make sense, in earthly terms, how God could be one and still three distinct persons.  This is why the word Trinity is used to describe God.  Those who believe in the Triune God are saying we believe what God says about Himself!  We believe this even if it is practically impossible to describe with human words or understand with a human mind.  God is bigger than our minds can fathom, and we are OK with that!

Although sometimes the incomprehensible nature of God causes our minds to doubt, this reality should also grant us peace.  God is bigger than our biggest fear.  God is bigger than death and is the Creator of life.  God is capable of love when we have reached the end of our rope.  God sends us out in His name when we don’t even trust ourselves.

This weekend we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  The amazing God that we have loves us more than we could even know.  He overcame death on our behalf and gives us eternal life.  If He can do all of this, there is a lot more to my God than words will ever be able to describe.

“None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love Him— these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.”  1 Corinthians 2:9-10

Pastor’s Corner

Pentecost

Have you ever wished that God would show up and make things clearer?  Maybe if He made His opinion a little more obvious we wouldn’t have so much animosity in the world.  Better yet, He could just express His disapproval with people doing awful things and that would at least clean things up once in a while.   If you have felt this way, you are not the first or last person to do so.  In fact, desiring God to make things emphatically clear is a common prayer amongst the faithful.

On a very special Pentecost, the first after Jesus’ death and resurrection, God did just what many faithful had hoped.  He acted swiftly and boldly so that everyone who witnessed would be aware.  The Bible uses strong language that tries to capture the power and presence of God. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house…” and “When they (crowds of people) heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.”

In addition to the sudden, violent, loud sounds that drew crowds, the disciples had flames on their heads but they did not catch on fire.  The disciples who were clearly of Jewish descent were speaking the language of every nation so that everyone could hear in their own language what was happening!  This event was so supernatural it caused the reaction you imagined it would.  People doubted.

Doubt wasn’t the only reaction to be sure, but even those who believed everything they saw were “amazed and perplexed and wondered what does this mean?”  Why isn’t such a powerful display of God’s power and presence more convincing?  Our mind and its ability to process new information is rather limited.  If we see something so outside the norm of our everyday life and not describable after a lifetime of experiences our natural tendency is to doubt what we are seeing.  We can’t believe our eyes.  Jesus says this very thing in Luke 16:31 “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

Jesus already knew how difficult it is for people to believe in things like God and miracles.  He knows we need signs and witnesses that we can understand and process.  I believe that is one of the reasons Jesus came as a human baby to save the world.  I also believe that is why it is so important for people like you and me to be aware of opportunities to share about Jesus.  People are more inclined to listen to and believe someone they know over a random stranger who is performing amazing miracles.

This Pentecost, I invite you to be filled with awe and wonder at the miracles God has performed and continues to perform each day.  I also invite you to be the person God has made you to be.  The greatest miracle God has ever performed is working faith in each believer and then using us to share His love with the world in simple, meaningful ways.