Free After School Sports and Activities!

Good Shepherd Church is excited to partner with the Sembradores Spanish Church in starting a new soccer ministry at Good Shepherd! Coached by Stephen Stoyko, Stephen Quanbeck, and Annaliese Neiman we invite kids 5 and up to join us every Tuesday and Thursday at 3:30pm for soccer drills and scrimmages! Meet us in the big backyard behind the Good Shepherd Church on 380 Arniell Road. We are especially excited to have opportunity to reach out to the Barry Street neighborhood next to the church.

Come Join us!  

New Starts and a Growing Family at Good Shepherd Church

• Beth Moore "Daniel" Studies and small groups (Thursday, 9:30 a.m. and Sundays, 3 p.m.)
• A Financial Peace seminar, featuring Dave Ramsey (Friday nights at 7 p.m.)
• A Weekly Baseball Clinic for Kids (Fridays, 1:30 p.m., at Valle Lindo Park)
• A weekly college-age gathering for young Twentysomethings (Hannah Johnson 384-9243)
• A Crown Ministry Financial Study (coming up on Fridays in January)
• Five new college-age interns serving us through the year (Bible college graduates from Alberta and Minnesota)
• Starting Point classes for new contacts and friends on Sundays (at 10 a.m.)
• A new adult choir of 20 voices (and counting!), rehearsals on Sunday mornings (9:55 to 10:30 a.m.)
• A growing youth group, called Crave, meeting on Sunday nights (5:30 to 7:30) with a veteran youth ministry teacher, Jon Nungester.
• A Drama Team, performing on Sundays, to highlight themes and messages on Sunday mornings.

And a growing family of believers, who are looking to let Jesus Christ bring new starts in their lives.

Come and partner together with us -- we're learning together to serve the Lord.

Pastor Jim Johnson

Building up kids, teaching the Bible, serving Camarillo.

Good Shepherd Church loves to be a part of the team that God is building in Ventura County.

We share the load and enjoy the work. Partnering with the other 25 churches in the Camarillo community, the new church wants to do its part. We're helping reach the people with the good news of Jesus. With about almost 200 people attending on Sundays and about 100 others in small groups, we see God moving. He is changing lives. He is bringing people to a new life in Jesus Christ -- and bringing long-time believers together.

We teach the Bible chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and work to start small groups in the community. Currently we are studying the Book of Matthew. Our primary teacher is Jim Johnson, our pastor since 2006. Jerry Nelson, a long-time music director in the Midwest, is our assistant. We also have a growing youth group and children's ministry. Veteran youth leader Jon Nungester, trained at Talbot Seminary, oversees our student ministry. If you are looking for a growing church that teaches the Bible, focuses on the Lord Jesus, and has a neighborhood feell, you're welcome at Good Shepherd!
 

GOOD SHEPHERD NEWS, Spring 2011

Praying for a Mom and a Friend
Ministry leader and pastor's wife Linda Johnson asks prayer for her mother Shirley Jackson

February 22 -- Good Shepherd's Linda Johnson asks friends to pray for her mother, Shirley Jackson, 74, as she recovers from breast cancer in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Friends gathered together at a hotel in Grand Forks the day before Shirley's surgery for treatment. Those pictured below include Shirley Jackson (second from the left), Linda and Hannah Johnson (at middle, with the baby), Linda's sister Beth (left), along with baby Jana (Linda's niece), as well as BIble school students Erin Harris, Josiah Nelson, Ben Dahl, Caleb and Katy Dahl, along with Michael Johnson. Surgery held on Feb. 22 showed that a negative result for cancer on the lymph nodes. "That was good news to us," says Linda. Shirley and husband Pastor Harvey Jackson are living in Park RIver, North Dakota.

We're praying for a quick recovery. Linda expects to return home to her family and husband on March 2. Tests following the surgery indicated no immediate need for radiation or chemotherapy, and Shirley is now recovering well at home with husband, Rev. Harvey Jackson.

When the Police Come To Your Church
The Little Miracles God Does
By James L. Johnson
February 12, 2011

What's going on at Good Shepherd these days?

Twelve words will suffice to explain it.

Twelve words, each of them, simple, austere. Twelve words to prepare you, make you smile, give you hope. Twelve words for this weekend at Good Shepherd Church, where we will gather for worship on Sunday, Feb. 13, on Valentine's Day Weekend at 8:45 and 11:00 a.m. The first two words are for people who need a date on Saturday night or Monday.

Date Night.

Saturday and Monday are open for couples, a dozen, at least. Naomi Finney and the Crave Youth Group are raising money to send dozens of kids to Colorado. They are also helping us raise hopes for a Valentine's Date. Helping people raise their children. Helping Good Shepherd youth raise their hopes for getting to the Free Lutheran Youth Convention, July 3 to 8, in Estes Park. That news should make guys without Valentines plans fly into action. The night is here. The date is set. The time is ripe. The children are waiting. Parents can bring their kids to the Connection Center at Good Shepherd any time on Saturday or Monday after 5 p.m., and come and get them before 10, and your babysitting needs for Saturday night will be over. We'll love them and protect them and give them a good time. And any compensation you offer will help students go the the FLY Convention.

In Estes Park. That beautiful mountain-range city in the Rockies reminds me of the next two words.

Parking Problems.

Estes Park is a great vacation place, with lots of parking, and beautiful parks, but that's not always the case for Good Shepherd Church. It's going to be no picnic for parking on Sunday morning, around 11 a.m. Oh sure, on Sunday, at Good Shepherd Church, the worship will be great, and the place will be full. We're expecting 75 at the Foundations Service, at 8:45, nothing unusual about that. But more than 250 may show at the Fresh Start gathering at 11:00. The reason for the parking crush comes in the form of five other nouns. Personal pronouns. Five special persons -- California youths -- who love the Lord.

Ryan. Isabel. Carter. Nathaniel. Jasper.

It's Confirmation Sunday. And the five Good Shepherd family members named above will be standing in front of the congregation, bringing testimonies of their faith, and bringing their relatives and friends and neighbors, too. Ryan Hiepler, Isabel Perez, Carter Schaub, Nathaniel Seeba, Jasper Twigg. They finished the study. They passed the test. And so, on this annual day of celebration for high school age Bible students in Camarillo, we stop and hear their stories of how they want to follow to Christ and confirm their faith. After two and a half years, and a long study of the Bible, they have memorized dozens of Bible verses. And now, this Sunday, on Valentine's Weekend, at 1 o'clock, they will bring dozens of guests. For that reason, we hope that families who can will open dozens of spaces, by parking in the back, or the street, or in the lot near the medical clinic to the north of Good Shepherd, near the entrance on Arneill. Can you help?

Which brings me to the next word. It's a number. And because of it's size, I find myself asking the question in the last paragraph, again, after the number.

Fifty.

That's the last count. Fifty baseball players, between age 5 and age 11. Fifty novices coming to the park, to Valle Lindo Park, every Friday, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. With only Jim Johnson and Naomi Finney to teach them to play. Our Good Shepherd Baseball Clinics growing. They have caught on. They are no longer a small matter, like when we started. We started with six. In the past, we were happy with 12. But that number feels like it was dozens of years ago. The neighborhood outreach to the community is catching on. The parents have heard about our free clinics, sandlot style, just for fun. No registration, no medical forms, no uniforms, no umps. Just kids and parents playing ball in the park. We teach them to play and we teach them to pray. Several families have been coming to church because of the clinics. They come because we love their kids. They come because they have come to know us. And because they have come, we need dozens of helpers. People like you. Dozens. Can you help?

Which brings me to the last two words.They are related to the last two words on the paragraph above. And they are related to the final three words in the paragraph above, which you can use either way, same as above or switch the around. "We can help" and "Can you help?" Do you know what the final two words of the twelve are? They easy. Put up your hands. Because the words are...

The Police.

Don't be alarmed. The police are not. They are encouraged. The Sheriff's Department and local captain, Monica McGrath, and Sergeant Curt Rothschiller are filled with hope and talking about vision. Camarillo Mike Morgan is into it. They see a church that is ready to reach into the Barry Street neighborhood with old fashioned church and sports ministry.

The captain and the sergeant and the mayor have heard about our church. They have heard about our baseball and sports ministry and our story. They are surprised at the miracle -- one church giving away its property to another. A church lying dormant giving their facility to a growing congregation who cares about kids. They are coming to us, and have been, for a few months now. I have met with them four times. And their arms are now open. "You are the first church that is open for this," they said. "You are perfect for this." We are perfect for Barry Street, they said. And they let us pray for them. They have been waiting for a place and a pastor and a church that are willing to step out and open arms and reach the neighborhood. Captain McGrath and Sgt. Rothschiller see our campus and our neighborhood and our heart for sports ministry. They see the grass growing in our back lot. They see the diminishing vandalism and our Connection Center. They have heard about our baseball clinics. And now they want to step in and join us. They look at our church backyard and the see a sports park.

"We can help you raise the money," they said. 'We can help you lay the concrete." Sgt. Rothschiller sees basketball standards and baseball cages and volleyball courts. They see children in the neighborhood coming to Good Shepherd from 3:30 to 6 p.m., playing basketball and getting tutoring and eating hot dogs and having a brownie. They see a "Grandparents Brigade" and college students teaching kids to play hoops. They are asking us to partner with churches like Jubilee, who does this in the Nyland neighborhood of Oxnard, and they are asking us to partner with the Calvario Church and churches like it. They want to help, too. Police officers, they said, should be known for playing basketball and teaching kids to hit baseballs, too. The police want to meet with our board the second Tuesday in March.

That's what happened this week and on Friday.

Do you think God is doing something here?