Announcements for Sunday, June 14
INSIDE: Worship Time Change • OWLs • Juneteenth
Worship Changes for the Summer
Starting THIS Sunday, June 14, through the summer: Sunday worship will be at 8am and 10am.
Join us for Worship!
Sunday Worship, June 14:
8am: live stream at 1stlu.org/live, and in-person. Nursery available.
NEW TIME FOR SUMMER! 10am: live stream at 1stlu.org/live, and in-person. Nursery available.
Sugar Creek Summer Reg Now Open
Sugar Creek offers 17 unique and powerful summer camp programs, plus retreat ministries for youth in elementary school, middle school, and high school – and adults and families! Located on 660 acres in the bluffs and valleys of southwestern Wisconsin. Come learn, relax, encounter Christ, and have fun at Sugar Creek! Explore sugarcreekbiblecamp.org for more information about next summer.
OWLs
The OWLs (our Older Wiser Lutherans at First, for anyone 55+) June potluck is Wednesday, June 17 at noon in the Fellowship Hall. Since its summer everyone should bring their favorite picnic food. The program will be summer fun and games.
For our June outing, the OWLs will be attending a La Crosse Concert band performance at Riverside Park. on Wednesday June 24. The theme for the La Crosse Concert Band performance will be “No Strings Attached.” Expect a mix of patriotic, classical and contemporary American compositions that highlight our rich musical heritage. We will meet at the church at 4:30pm. and have a fine dinner at The Big Lady (used to be David Reay's) before heading to the park. Bring a folding lawn chair if you don’t like to sit on the park benches. The concert is free and dinner is on your own. If you would like to attend, connect with volunteer coordinator Brian Narveson at 630-816-5917 or owls@firstlu.org. The outing will go rain or shine as it is transferred to a local high school in event of rain.
Upcoming Office Closures
The office will be closed at the following times…
Friday, June 19, Juneteenth
Friday, July 3, Independence Day observed
Juneteenth Celebration
La Crosse’s annual Juneteenth celebration! Uniting all members of the community in celebration of Black Americans!! Fun, food, entertainment, history, education and connection. At Riverside Park on Saturday, June 20, noon–8pm.
Sending Sunday
On Sunday, June 21, at the 10am service, we invite everyone, especially those participating in Faith Webs, to help send off and bless our middle school, high school and all-ages service trips as they head out to their various destinations in July!
Outdoor Worship and Potluck
First will worship outdoors on Fifth Ave for the second service once a month during the summer, on the following Sundays, weather permitting…
June 21, 10am
July 26, 10am
August 16, 10am
Bring your own lawn chairs, perhaps a hat to shade your eyes, and a side dish to share at the potluck (though everyone is welcome at the potluck even if you don’t bring anything!). If the weather's bad that day, we'll move inside. NOTE: There is no live stream of the 10am outdoor service.
Monday Night Community Meals
For many years, Trinity Lutheran Church on the north side of La Crosse has hosted a meal on Monday nights. First Lutheran helps with this important community ministry, by preparing a meal, serving the food, and cleaning up. We need people to plan and prepare the meal to feed 150-200 people, and folks to serve the meal (5-6pm) and help with cleanup. Meal prep can be done at your convenience. Many times people prepare the main course a week ahead, freeze it, and reheat it. Food for the meal can be gotten at no charge from the Hunger Task Force in La Crosse. New for 2026: Cookie bakers! Help bake a batch of 4 dozen cookies! NEXT: June 22. Sign up at 1stlu.org/next.
Summer Book Read
Join Pastor Karyn and Pastor Libby (and thousands of others across the country) in a Summer Book Read this June! The book? Communion by Bell Hooks. In this third book of her trilogy on love in American culture, Bell Hooks reveals how women of all ages can achieve emotional growth and bring love into every aspect of their lives, for all the years of their lives. This is not another self-help, find your man, book. This book explores how vital love, in all its forms, is to our lives as women.
Each person is responsible for purchasing their own book. Support our local bookstores by purchasing it from them, or check it out from the library! How it will work: We will read the book during the month of June and gather on June 24 in the evening to discuss the book together. The time and place will be determined once we know how many people will be joining us. Sign up at 1stlu.org/next.
Summer Music Outings & Picnics
This summer, join others from First Lutheran at area music events. We will meet for a potluck picnic before the event, and then enjoy some good local music. Most of the events will feature musicians from First Lutheran or friends of First Lutheran. Looking forward to seeing you there!
July 9: Matt Mahlum Band at Moon Tunes (5:30pm at Riverside Park). First Lutheran potluck picnic at 5pm.
July 19: La Crosse Jazz Orchestra at Jazz in the Park (7pm at Riverside Park, feat. Cori and Sara on vocals). First Lutheran potluck picnic at 6:30pm.
August 13: Fayme Rochelle and the Waxwings at Moon Tunes (5:30 at Riverside Park, feat. Todd Saner on vocals). First Lutheran potluck picnic at 5pm.
August 18: Fly Casual at Great River Sound (6:30 at Dash Park) First Lutheran potluck picnic at church at 5:30pm.
August 20: Saner and Gibbs at Moon Tunes (5:30 at Riverside Park) First Lutheran potluck picnic at 5pm.
Synod Night at the Loggers
Join your friends, neighbors, and fellow synod members at the "Lumberyard" on July 12 for a fun-filled Synod Night Out of food, fellowship, and La Crosse Loggers baseball! Learn more & register.
Lead Sunday School & VBS
There are opportunities to serve as a Sunday School teacher and a leader in VBS. A Sunday School teacher is a commitment of 1 or 2 weekends a month in which you connect with our congregation's children. It is super easy with the curriculum. VBS is another way to connect, this is so fun and is high energy. If you like to play games or would like to help organize or help in any way, please consider! Contact Pastor Stanton: jason@firstlu.org.
Vacation Bible School!
Plan to be here for Vacation Bible School this summer, Monday, Aug. 3, through Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. Invite your neighbors! For 4K through Grade 5 in the fall (3-year-olds are welcome to attend in the nursery). Learn more at 1stlu.org/next.
Mini Donut 5K in Honor of Branden Brownrigg
Every year the 5k portion of the local Mini Donut races honors a local person who was lost to suicide, and the money raised is used to educate the community in the hope of awareness and prevention. The Brownrigg family would love to have members of our church support them at this event on Sept 12, honoring their son Branden Brownrigg. Registration for the event is still open and typically sells out by August. More info and reg can be found at 1stlu.org/minidonut.
Behind the Scenes Changes
As Pastor Stanton mentioned in his message in church on Sunday, May 31, we currently ask members to use several different platforms in order to participate in the ministries at First Lutheran. In an effort to make signing up and registering for events and opportunities easier for everyone, and to bring giving history, signups and more all under one roof, we will be making some big changes to how we manage our membership data and our giving platform this summer. A few of the areas this will affect will be:
Membership: we’ll be migrating our membership roles from our current platform to our new platform sometime in June.
Website: as of right now we have no plans to change our website provider, but the look will change a bit as we integrate it with our new platform.
Church app: the new platform offers a church app, which we will be working on throughout the summer and hope to launch at First Fest this fall.
Giving: the platform we use for giving will be changing, and we’ll be asking members to switch their giving to this new platform later in 2026.
Signing up/registering: we will be ending our use of Signup Genius and will be transferring our sign ups to our new platform later in 2026.
We intend to make our migration over the summer, and to start a staggered rollout of features starting in the fall.
⚠️ Updating Current Online Directory
With the above changes in mind please note: As of June 9, we have migrated our data into the new platform, and therefore any changes made in our current (old) online directory will not be reflected in our new system, and will need to be re-entered. Our apologies for this inconvenience while we make this transition.
Sunday School
Sunday School resumes on Sept. 13. Have a blessed summer!
More info and registration: 1stlu.org/sunschool
Confirmation
Grade 8–10 confirmation orientation will be Sunday, Aug. 16.
More info and registration: 1stlu.org/confirm.
