Ashland Optimist Bulletin May 31 2025
Breakfast: June 7- Chris Felmlee, Leigh Kottwitz, Loren Plank
Program- Tina Murphy- Widow's Wallet Life coaching
Our next Bingo will be June 6th, and it will include a $1,199 game. We will also have new pull tab games starting that night. We will NOT host Bingo on Friday, July 4th.
The Optimist Fishing Derby will be held at the Ashland City park on June 14th from 9:00-10:30. Tara Blue is coordinating this and would appreciate at least four volunteers to help with set up, helping young fishers, and help with clean up. Please contact Tara at bluebirdtara@gmail.com if you can help.
Since President Ken Bishop and Past President Leigh Kottwitz were gone, Bernie Bartel was kind enough to step up and lead the meeting this morning. We had a fabulous breakfast, provided by Carole Iles, Tony Ash, Dorise, Bryson, and Reece Slinker, with all of our favorites, plus three flavors of sheet-pan pancakes.
Our speaker this morning was our own Rev. Elmer Schiefer talking about the history of the Christian church. Any errors in this bulletin are on me because I'm not as articulate as Elmer was. He started by saying that the church started in 33 AD, with the Apostles Creed as the original statement of faith around 150 AD. The church grew and, around 300 AD, some believers broke away and wrote the Nicene Creed, which states that Jesus was the begotten son of God. The church continued to grow until 1054 when the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople in Turkey disagreed about theological issues, which resulted in the Pope and Patriarch excommunicating each other. This led to the founding of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.
Growth continued for another 500 years until Martin Luther chose to be a priest and started reading the Bible, which was only available in Latin. Because all Bibles were hand-written, the only people who had access were clergy. The church in Rome had started selling indulgences, which promised remission of sins, to raise money to build St. Peter's Basilica. In his reading of the Bible, Martin discovered verses that spoke of forgiveness through faith alone. He posted ninety-five theses which challenged the Church's traditions regarding indulgences and the Pope's authority and stated that people should be able to make their own decisions about their faith. Because Gutenberg had recently figured out a way to use movable print, the theses and copies of the Bible became widely shared, which led to the Protestant Reformation.
Since that time, the Protestant church led to the emergence of various denominations, including three different branches of the Lutheran church. Elmer closed by sharing his belief that all Christians are part of the same whole, no matter what denomination they follow and shared proof through John 17:10, which states that all are Christ's, if they believe in him.
When Elmer was finished speaking, he drew for the Attendance drawing. Mike Fulca, Cory Fischer, and Bryan Beal had their chance at riches, but with their absence, the pot will continue to grow. Since it was the last meeting of the month, Barrett figured the Poker Pot. There were several people with pairs, but Bernie Bartel won with two pairs.
In a separate link, you will find the new breakfast schedule, which goes through the end of October.
Optimist Breakfast schedule 2025
Letitia DenHartog
ashlandoptimist.org
