John Louk

What is leadership? Nicholas Murray Butler, former President of Columbia University, once said, “There are three kinds of people in the world…those who don’t know what’s happening, those who watch what is happening, and those who make things happen.” Leaders make things happen in the world.   In the church, our leaders are responsible for making things happen by overseeing people and ministries. I am very excited to announce that Salem has new staff persons. And they are great!   Along with our paid staff, Sharon Vavra (Administrative Assistant) and Bill Heald (Traditional Music), we now add Louis Busch (Building Superintendent). After many years of excellent years, Gary Novak has resigned to lessen the stress on his work schedule. We are grateful for Gary and all he has done for Salem. Louis has been serving as a Trustee on the Leadership Board and is already doing a great job of overseeing the building and property.   We are also adding new, unpaid staff persons: De...

In worship we have been reading the stories of our ancestors in Genesis. The Covenant God made with God’s people, beginning with Abraham and Sarah, is that because the LORD blesses us we will be a blessing; all the families of the earth will be blessed by us (Genesis 12:1-3). Through Jesus we have been grafted on to God’s people. So we are meant to be a blessing to all the people of the earth. Tom Long, a preaching professor in Atlanta, tells a story about the city where he lives that sounds like 1974 in Cedar Rapids when Interstate 380 was built next to Salem’s former downtown property. “A decision was made to build a new freeway into Atlanta…A swath of houses was condemned, and eventually a whole neighborhood was torn down to make way for the highway. For a short time, though, families were still living in those houses, homes that many of them had lived in for generations, but they knew that soon the bulldozers would come and tear them down. The effects were demoralizing on the nei...