Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

This Week at CR: God's Antidote to Your Hurt

Good morning Church Requel!

This is Pastor Mark back to writing my weekly updates to you about all the wonderful things happening at Church Requel. I'm back from my bicycle trip and very excited about these last two weeks  in our "Stressbusters" sermon series. More about that in a moment! But first...

The Baptistry Is Ordered! I wanted to put this great announcement right up front because I know how very hard you all have worked to provide this addition to our church. This week I spoke to Juli and Ron in Everett, WA and shared with them the exciting things happening here in Mansfield, Ohio! If it's possible, I think they were even more excited about what's going on than I am. They asked us to let them know about our first baptisms. I sent them the check this morning and if everything goes as planned, it should be delivered to 2 Marion Avenue by the middle of July! I'll be sure to let you know when the truck will be here for those of you who want to help uncrate it. Should be quite a party! (The motif for the baptistry we chose is "Nazareth," which you can see to the right. This is the pattern of the lining on the outside of our new baptistry. Click on the image if you'd like to see a larger version.)

Let's Feed The Hungry! You have all been so faithful in helping us feed the hungry in our neighborhood. One week from tomorrow, July 6th, we're going to do it again. The last time we fed almost 200 folks! We are expecting "all hands on deck" to do it again next Saturday. What can you do to help?

1. Plan on volunteering yourself! Volunteers should show up by 4pm. We start feeding at 5pm. If you'd like to help Sheri and the ladies with their cooking, let Sheri know. They usually start around 2pm.
2. Bring someone with you. Last time I brought my grandson, Grayden, and we had a spectacular time together. It was a great opportunity to teach him the value of loving our neighbors and putting others ahead of ourselves. I'll never forget the way he eyed those meatballs that he never got a taste of because we gave them all away!
3. Bring desserts, desserts, desserts. The word is getting out about Church Requel meals among our neighbors. The desserts seem eternal! Let's not disappoint. Put those baking caps on and heat up those ovens. You can bring the desserts with you when you come or just drop them off Saturday afternoon if you can't serve.

Listen To The Podcast! This past Monday I sat down with Pastor Steve and talked about the weekend I was gone. Did you know we broke two records on that day? We had more people in attendance and we received the largest offering we ever have! And Pastor Mark wasn't even there!!! Steve and I recorded a podcast together, which is now up for your listening pleasure. We are so blessed to have Pastor Steve serving us. He is almost finished with the tech booth in the back of the sanctuary. However, he has a long list of things he plans to do - including some plumbing upgrades for our new baptistry! How wonderful is it that he is also such a great teacher as well?! On June 16th he taught on "God's Antidote To Indecision." You can hear my conversation with him along with his talk by listening to that particular podcast. If you haven't already done so, I recommend you subscribe to the podcast or get on the podcast email list.

This Weekend: "God's Antidote To Your Hurt" We will continue our Stressbusters series this weekend with part 6. Wow - has this series ever flown by!? We'll be focusing on Psalm 23:5. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."  Because we live in an imperfect world, you're going to be hurt - sometimes by accidents, sometimes by illnesses. However, the deepest hurts you'll have in your life will come from people. Relationships bring us the greatest blessings and joys, but they also can bring on the greatest amount of stress. We'll talk about 5 things NOT to do when you're hurt, and then turn on magnifying glass to Psalm 23:5 to discover the three things we must do to allow Jesus to heal us from our hurts. I trust you won't miss this important talk.

Children To Perform Sunday! In addition to everything else this weekend, our children's ministry will be acting out the 23rd Psalm for us. (Oh dear - I fear that if my friend, Jami Kinton were reading this, she would tell me I just buried the lead!) The photo on the left is of Paul Scott, who will be playing the part of the shepherd Sunday morning. Our kids have been practicing this for the last 3 weeks and are really excited to provide you their own highly creative reading of the 23rd Psalm. If you want to know what kind of treat you are in for, I suggest you check out the Facebook photo album of the kids practicing together with their costumes.

Church Requel Was In The Paper! We made the front page of Wednesday's News Journal. The article was titled, "Road Trip Celebrates Lincoln Highway Centennial."  (also written by Jami.) Pastor Paul Lintern organized the celebration, which included antique cars and lots of great memories. You'll notice the new highway markers and banner on our church when you come Sunday morning.

Let's Support Mary Kay and NAMI. Last, but definitely not least - especially here in the Pierce household - we friends of Mary Kay Pierce have the opportunity to support the cause of mental health and the National Alliance on Mental Illness tomorrow morning. NAMI has reserved the Richland County fairgrounds for a 5k Run / Walk at 9am Saturday morning. (Registration begins at 8am.) So far about 50 runners have registered, including Nancy, Jana, and yours truly from CR. But you don't have to be a runner to participate and show your support. There will also be many walkers, who will walk around the horse racetrack at least once. For those of you who might not know, NAMI advocates for those families who have a loved one with a mental illness, like schizophrenia, bi-polar disease, and depression. One in four families in North Central Ohio have a loved one with such a condition. Mary Kay leads the NAMI - Richland County - and if I may say so, does one terrific job of it! Let's show her how much we support and love her on Saturday morning!

That's going to do it for this week's edition of "What's Happening at CR." Know how much I love each of you and how much I'm looking forward to seeing you Sunday morning at 11am at Church Requel. Blessings to you! Pastor Mark

#062: God's Antidote to Indecision [Podcast]

We make decisions and then our decisions make us. Every decision has a consequence in our life. We are who we are today largely because of the decisions we've made in the past. Pastor Steve Thoman shares 4 ways to get guidance from God when we are making decisions.

Click to Listen!

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play or Download in new window.

Music for this week's podcast is "Undecided" by The Ames Brothes.

This Week at CR: God's Antidote to Dark Valleys

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

As you read this weekly letter from me, I am bicycling my way 50 miles from New Breman to Sidney. This week I have been enjoying a GOBA vacation. The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure so far this week has taken me through Urbana, Troy, Greenville and New Breman. After Sidney tonight, I'll return to Urbana tomorrow morning and be back in time to worship with you at Church Requel Sunday morning. To say it's been quite a ride would be an understatement! 

I'm very excited about our talk this week, "God's Antidote to Dark Valleys." There's an old Arab parable that says: “All sunshine and no rain makes a desert."  If you never have any down, dark, gloomy times in your life - you'll be dried up.  You'll have no depth to yourself.  It takes good times and bad times to make a mature person.  Sunday, we're going to study Psalm 23:4 and learn God's antidote to the dark valleys of life. We'll learn 5 things to remember when you're in the dark valley and then 3 things to do. I'm hoping this will be a valuable lesson for all of us.

Many folks are participating in the leadership of Sunday's services in addition to me. Brandi Walker will be back with us Sunday leading our worship singing. She always does such a great job! Pastor Steve will be teaching our kids' sermon. Our little ones will join him up front, while all the big kids (that's you and me) are sure to lean in from the pews. Nancy will be bringing our announcements. And Randy will be reading our Scripture. It looks like it will be another awesome worship time at Church Requel!

Good News! 

• Last weekend we received all the money we need to purchase the portable baptistery! Yay! Yay! Yay! Next week I plan on placing our order.
• Diana Devolder has begun an online prayer chain. If you haven't already signed up, you can link up here. Thanks Diana!
• Our greeting team is starting to grow! We thank Don and Sharma for their leadership. We still need more volunteers so that the teams only need to serve once per month. Talk to either Don, Sharma, or Pastor Steve, if you're willing to greet people with a hearty handshake and a warm smile.
• Our next neighborhood meal will be Saturday evening, July 6th. Bring large cans of vegetables and fruit to Church Requel on any Sunday morning. Plan on bringing lots of desserts on Saturday July 6th. Volunteers should report by 4pm. The meal begins at 5pm and ends at 6pm.
• Church Requel Summer Picnic has been scheduled for Sunday, August 25th.  Yes it's two months away, but we want all of you to get it on your calendar now so you don't miss it. We'll worship together Sunday morning and then go straight to North Lake Park for our picnic.

That will wrap up this week's CR newsletter. I can't wait to see each of you Sunday morning!

With Christ's great love, Pastor Mark

This Week at CR: God's Antidote to Indecision

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

I hope everyone came through the storms of this past week in good shape. Mary Kay and I - not surprisingly - responded to the many tornado warnings in very different ways. I sat out in our garage watching the wind and the rain, moving my chair back into the garage as the wind picked up. For several hours I read my Kindle and listened to the weather howl.  Mary Kay, meanwhile, was inside watching the radar and coming out to the garage every so often to make certain I wasn't blown away. Finally, near midnight, I went to bed and slept like a baby. Mary Kay was up half the night, as every new warning brought her back downstairs to watch the radar again. Now that I think about it, maybe I slept so well because I knew that Mary Kay knew what was going on!

I'm writing you this weekly CR update so you'll know what's going on... and this weekend we have a lot going on! First off - it's Father's Day at Church Requel. We have some very special programming in our worship service to honor all our dads! I'm especially excited about a new worship video from The Skit Guys named simply, Fatherhood.  We use videos from The Skit Guys often, because they do such great work. With that in mind, I believe this video we're showing on Father's Day will be the best Skit Guys movie we have EVER shown. It's that good! Seriously - you won't want to miss it!

Also - for the first time since we've been at the Point of Grace, we will have a full, live worship band leading our worship singing! Many thanks to Dave Johnson, who has recruited and organized the band for this weekend. In addition to Dave playing guitar, Ryan will be on drums, Jana will be playing keyboard, Matt will be on bass, and my niece, Christy Anne will lead vocals. I know they are going to do a great job, because I know you will encourage them with your own enthusiastic worship!

God's Antidote to Indecision. We'll continue with our Stressbusters sermon series from the 23rd Psalm. We've already looked at the antidotes to worry, to busyness, and to damaged emotions. Sunday morning we're going to look at the antidote to the stress that is caused by indecision. Life is a series of decisions. Success is a matter of making wise decisions. We make our decisions and then our decisions make us. Because every decision has a consequence, decision making can be stressful. How do we let God guide us onto the right path?

I'm very excited about our teaching time this coming Sunday, because our own Pastor Steve will be teaching us.  I have valued Steve's counsel from the very beginning of Church Requel's founding. I have discovered in Steve someone who has consistently made wise decisions. He's also been most generous with his help to me and to many other Church Requel parishioners. So I know that none of you will be surprised that when it came to teaching about God's guidance and provision, I wanted Steve to share what he has learned in his own experiences.  I'm sure that Sunday morning will be a very special teaching moment at Church Requel!

Leadership Decisions. Speaking of wise decision making, this past Tuesday our leadership team met and made some decisions you'll want to know about. (1) We anticipate that we will have the tech booth completed by the middle of July. (2) We believe we will receive the final funding for the portable baptistery this week and will plan on placing our order for it by the end of June. (3) Within the month we will begin working on two new projects - signage for the parking lot and a security camera system for the church.  We also approved our sermon schedule for the next 5 months and have some very exciting news coming your way soon about our next study!  After Tuesday's meeting, which included new leaders, Randy and Sheri, all I could do was praise God for His amazing provision for us. (If you'd like to hear more of the inside scoop from Tuesday night, I recommend you listen to this week's podcast.)

That's going to do it for this week's edition of What's Happening at CR. I hope you have a great weekend and will join us Sunday morning at Church Requel.

Privileged to be your pastor,  Mark

#061: God's Antidote to Damaged Emotions [Podcast]

Do you sometimes struggle with guilt, grief, or grudges? Sure you do! You wouldn't be human if you didn't. We all have damaged emotions. Fortunately God wants to "restore my soul." In this sermon we'll talk about how to let God remove my guilt, relieve my grief, and replace my grudges. We'll also get caught up with the most recent leadership decisions at Church Requel!

Click to Listen!

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play or Download in new window.

Music for this week's podcast is "Counting On God" by Desperation Band.

#060: God's Antidote to Busyness [Podcast]

Stressbuster #2 in the 23rd Psalm is God's antidote for busyness. Do you know how to really R.E.L.A.X. the way God intends? This is the Church Requel sermon from June 2nd. Many thanks to Rick Warren and Saddleback Resources for providing the original work, which serves as the basis for the Stressbusters series.

Click to Listen!

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play or Download in new window.

The music for this week's podcast is "Busy Man" by Steven Curtis Chapman.

This Weekend at CR: Damaged Emotions

Hello Church Requel!

Pastor Mark here with your weekly update to what's going on at Church Requel. I'm really looking forward to our worship service together tomorrow morning. We will continue our "Stressbusters" series and our study of the 23rd Psalm. This Sunday is "God's Antidote to Damaged Emotions."

Life is tough. We all need our souls restored periodically.  We get beat up by discouragement, depression, and despair. We all sometimes suffer from fatigue, failure, and frustrations. We all have  emotional garbage of one kind or another. God wants to take away your emotional garbage. He wants to restore your soul! He does that when you allow Him to make 3 changes in your life. Tomorrow we will talk about those 3 changes!

Miss Ohio Potluck Cancelled. I have heard back from many of you this week that next Sunday is Father's Day. Many have understandably already made plans for that afternoon. So I've decided to cancel our plans for the potluck and parade water pass out next weekend. We are flexible here at Church Requel headquarters. I made a quick decision to try to take advantage of the opportunity of next weekend's parade. But it doesn't look like it will work out this time. Thanks for all of your feedback!

Short letter this week. I can't wait for tomorrow morning! See you then!

With love, Pastor Mark