Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

This Week At CR: Prayers That Get Things Done

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

I am so excited for this weekend. What about you? Tonight I'm spending the night with my siblings, Kimberly and Todd. Tomorrow I'm attending Blake Barnes' graduation recital. And Sunday I get to spend the morning with all of you! Woo hoo!

I'm looking forward to Sunday for so many reasons. First, we begin a 2-part sermon series on prayer, which I'm calling: "Prayers That Get Things Done." I wrote one of these sermons back in January, but then we had to postpone it because of the snow emergency. (Just the mention of "snow" makes me so enthused about this weekend's weather!!!) When I pulled the sermon back out for this summer I realized we needed more than one week to talk about this important topic.

Second, I'm pumped about this weekend's worship service because our home-grown musicians - Dave Johnson on guitar, Ian Jensen on bass, and Dan Logan on drums - will be leading our worship singing. Who knew Dan could also play drums?  They will lead us to sing "This Is Amazing Grace" by Phil Wickham and "Your Grace Finds Me" by Matt Redman. At the end of our sermon, the trio will come back up and play a special for us - most appropriate for a talk on prayer - "All The People Say Amen" by Matt Maher. You're really going to enjoy the music on Sunday! Want a 16-second preview? Click here for a clip by Brandi Walker taken during Tuesday's rehearsal.

There's a third reason I'm so enthused about our worship experience on Sunday. Many of our children will be participating in one way or another.  Elijah Jensen will be giving announcements. Wyatt Stanfield will read our Scripture. Anna Scott, Allie Stimens, Grayden Pierce, Grace Miller, and Paityn Hall will perform a short skit we're calling, "I Don't Know How To Pray." It's really funny. The kids perform it with such enthusiasm. I promise you won't want to miss it! (How will I ever preach after this? LOL.) Brandi snapped this picture of Grayden and Paityn. Click here to see all 5 snapshots.

New Interim Children's Director. We shared some great news with our congregation last Sunday. We share it here again in case you missed it. Tamira Barnes has agreed to be our Interim Children's Ministry Director during June and July. You know Tamira as the terrific pianist, who often plays for Jeff and Brianna Barnes (like last weekend.) Tamira is passionate about children's ministry. She comes to us with 24 years of experience leading children's ministries in many churches throughout Florida and Ohio. We are thrilled that she has decided to help us, while we search for a permanent director. I know our children will benefit. This week she asked me for the list of children so she could begin praying for each of them individually. God is indeed good to us!

Brandi, Tamira and I are working hard to make this the best summer ever at Church Requel. I know it's tempting to miss Sunday mornings during the beautiful summer weekends we enjoy in North Central Ohio. But I promise that if you make the commitment to keep CR in your weekend plans, we will help make this your best summer too. We're seeing God move among us in such amazing ways. Just this morning I had a conversation with a new friend at Paul Revere's Restaurant, where I had the chance to brag about how amazing our Sunday morning experiences have been together. I hope he comes and visits. What about you? Tell your family and friends about Church Requel. They will thank you. And so will I!

With great affection, Pastor Mark

How To Bring Out The Best In Your Kids [Video Sermon]

How do we bring out the best in our children? The Bible teaches 5 ways to help your kids be all that God has created them to be.

How To Bring Out The Best In Your Kids from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

 You can follow along with the online sermon notes or download the fill-in-the-blanks PDF Outline.

#110: Bring Out The Best In Your Kids [Podcast]

How do we bring out the best in our children? The Bible teaches 5 ways to help your kids be all that God has created them to be. I also share some of my Memorial Day weekend events. Music for this week's podcast is "On The Beach (In The Summertime)" by The Fifth Dimension.

Click to Listen!

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

Dan's Testimony & Baptism [Video]

Dan Logan was baptized at Church Requel last Sunday, May 18th, 2014. Here is his testimony and baptism video.

Dan Logan's Testimony & Baptism from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

This Week At CR: Bringing Out The Best In Your Kids

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Friday has arrived!! Not just any Friday but the Friday before a 3-day weekend. Does it get any better than that? Mom always said "If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's yours." With that in mind: THANK YOU FRIDAY!! We love you too!!!!  This is wonderful! We shall celebrate your return!! I hope you have some fantastic plans for this weekend AND I hope your plans include Church Requel Sunday morning at 11am.

Bringing Out The Best In Your Kids. We wrap up our Raising Amazing Kids sermon series this Sunday with a talk about how to bring out the best in your children. (By the way, the five suggestions I'll mention Sunday work for every relationship - spouses, employees, fellow team members all included!) We'll close this talk with a parent's prayer from Psalm 101:2 from the Living Bible:

"I will try to walk a blameless path, but how I need Your help, especially in my own home, where I long to act as I should."

We are very fortunate to have an outstanding praise team scheduled to lead us in worship on Sunday morning. Brianna Barnes has returned home from college and will be joining her dad, Jeff, singing on the CR platform. Tamira Barnes will be playing the keys and Ian Jensen returns with his bass guitar. Brandi and I watched the fun rehearsal this past Wednesday evening. We are in for some great music on Sunday! Brianna wrote a new song, "My Resurrection," which she will sing for for us for the first time during our communion. I'm also thrilled that Kay Butts will be reading our Scripture reading - she always reads in such a beautiful (and dramatic) way.

Prayer Sermons Next Two Weeks. Want to know where our teaching will be going now that we've finished our parenting series? For the next two weekends, June 1st and 8th, we'll be talking about Prayers That Get Things Done. We'll look at some of the most outstanding prayers in the Bible to discover what made them so effective. Our first week we'll talk about the WHAT and on the second week we'll talk about the HOW of praying to get things done. Next weekend will be a Sunday when our children will be worshipping the entire time with us, so they will be performing a very humorous (not to mention poignant and memorable) skit on the Church Requel platform. You will not want to miss!

I think that wraps up this week's letter from pastor to congregation. Last night I had the privilege of watching Grayden, my grandson, play baseball. I was sitting next to another grandson, Cohen, and asked him how many days of school he had left. He never hesitated - he knew the number exactly - 6 more days!

So here's a funny for all the kiddos, big and small, who are looking forward to the unofficial start to summer next week. The picture on the right explains why Moses would never have made a good life guard.

Have a great weekend! Hope to see you Sunday at 11am.

With affection, Pastor Mark

Five Conversations Parents And Children Must Have [Video Sermon]

We talk about the five purposes of our lives and how we teach these to our children using 5 key questions in this past Sunday morning sermon at Church Requel.

Five Conversations Parents And Children Must Have from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

You can follow along with the online sermon notes or download the fill-in-the-blanks PDF outline.

#109: Five Conversations Parents And Children Must Have [Podcast]

We talk about the five purposes of our lives and how we teach these truths to our children using 5 key questions. The music for this week's podcast is "Happy Birthday" by DJ Bobo.

Click to Listen!

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

This Week At CR: Neighborhood Meal & Dan's Baptism

Good (Chilly) Friday morning Church Requel!

As I write this weekly dispatch to you, my church family, I'm listening to "Awake My Soul" by Mumford & Sons. Perhaps Psalms 57:8 should be our daily wake-up verse! I think of all the times we spend together coming alive in our souls to the truths God has so generously provided in His Word. I'm looking forward to our next worship experience this coming Sunday morning.

Neighborhood Meal Saturday. Before we MEET for church Sunday morning, though, we have yet another opportunity to BE the church Saturday night by SERVING our neighbors a free meal. I've talked to Sheri Nichols, who will be leading our team of volunteers on Saturday down at the Point of Grace. She tells me we will be serving a delicious chili supper and that most of the ingredients have been generously donated to us. Yay! What we still need are cheerful, Christ-filled volunteers to help out at 4pm. Oh - and your homemade desserts would be pretty awesome too! 

Dan's Baptism Sunday Morning! I'm truly excited about Dan Logan's baptism scheduled for Sunday morning. Dan Logan met with me Wednesday evening on the outside steps of Church Requel to tell me his story. We captured some of it on video and will be sharing it with you this coming Sunday before his baptism.

His testimony video will be a touching time of hearing of how Christ worked to get Dan's attention his whole life. He talks candidly about the tragedy of a friend's suicide. "I think along the way I lost my faith and spent a lot of years trying to punish myself," Dan said. "But repeatedly, over and over, God was saying, 'Would you please listen to me? Just pay attention to what I'm trying to say to you!'" I promise you that you will not want to miss this exciting event in the life of Church Requel!

Five Conversations With Your Kids. We will continue our Raising Amazing Kids sermon series with part 4: "Five Conversations Parents and Children Must Have." You might remember a few weeks ago I talked about the 4 Jobs of the Parent. Job 4 was to point your kids to God. This week we will talk about one of the most natural ways you can point your children to God: by the conversations you have with them. Every day you will discover teaching opportunities, if you know what to look for. Sunday we'll talk about those daily life experiences in which you can ask your children one of five key questions. This is one of the greatest joys of mentoring children! Want a head start? Here are the sermon notes for Sunday.

Along the way Sunday, Nancy will tell us what's coming up. Brandi and Cindy will lead our worship singing and Brandi will lead our congregational prayer time. Cindy, Sara and Diana have creative plans for KidsMin. Pastor Steve will lead our communion celebration. And Jennifer Carrick will read our Scripture. We will also watch a TV throwback conversation between "The Beaver" and his mom, Mrs. Cleaver.

Are you excited about your church? I know I am. While you expect your pastor to be upbeat about his church, I love that so many of you are too. I can see it in your faces when you show up Sunday mornings early and when you so often stay late and visit with friends. Church life - like any other family life - can sometimes be challenging. We have to work through relationships sometimes. But the reward is so worth it! Let's not keep Church Requel our little secret. Tell another friend about the great Sunday mornings where Marion Avenue meets Park Avenue West. I hope to see you and your friends this Sunday at 11am. With much affection, Pastor Mark

The Lord's Prayer - Children Style [Video]

Our children recited the Lord's Prayer for this past Mother's Day Sunday worship at Church Requel.

Kid's Lord's Prayer from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

#108: Eight Truths Every Child Needs To Know [Podcast]

On this 108th edition of the CR Audio Podcast I talk about planning for our Mother's Day service yesterday, about partnering with Pastor Steve to lose 100 pounds of unneeded weight between the two of us, and our decision to offer a Vacation Bible School in August. This week's Mother's Day sermon comes from the Lord's Prayer, where we learn eight truths parents should teach their children about God. 

Click to Listen!

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

The music for this week's podcast is the themesong from the TV show, "Everybody Loves Raymond."

8 Truths Every Child Needs To Know [Video Sermon]

From the Lord's Prayer we learn eight truths parents should teach their children about God. This is our Church Requel Mother's Day sermon.

140511EightTruths from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

Follow along with the online sermon notes or download the fill-in-the-blanks PDF Outline.

This Week at CR: A Very Special Mother's Day

Good Friday morning!

Wow, do we ever have a special Mother's Day service planned for this Sunday morning at Church Requel! The pictures on the right show a top secret video project nine of our children worked on last Sunday in preparation for Mom's Day. We can't tell you the details. But we can tell you that you will not want to miss Sunday morning. Their video scores a 110 on the Uber-Cuteness scale (out of possible score of 100.) Many thanks to Diana, Jonathan and Grayden for their technical help along with all the kiddos who participated. (You can click on any of the pics to enlarge them, if you wish.)

We will continue our Raising Amazing Kids sermon series this Sunday morning. This week our text is the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13), from which we will learn "8 Truths Every Child Needs To Know." If you want to know what you should tell your children about God, then this is the talk you should hear. By the way, it won't matter whether your children are age 5 or age 50. This is a great talk for all ages! Want a head start? Here are the online sermon notes for the Bible app.

Brandi has been working hard on arranging some great music for us. We'll hear songs written by Tree63, Darrell Evans and Kari Jobe. The children will be passing out something special to all our ladies. Also Diana Devolder, Fred Wiegand and Lisa Bistline will be working with our children to create something special for all their moms during KidsMin. Did I mention a funny "Mom or Marie" visit from the Everybody Loves Raymond cast? Should be a good time of worship together.

The Great Warm Up / Shrinking Pastors. Anyone else excited about the warming weather outside? I had the privilege of spending most of my day yesterday with Pastor Steve Thoman. We burned up the entire morning installing the screens into our windows. Steve is such a wonderful perfectionist about his work at CR. No one else would probably notice this small detail, so I will point it out... Many of the screws and washers holding the windows and screens were rusting out after many years of use. So we made a trip to the hardware store to pick up 56 stainless steel screws and washers. I learned something in the process. There is indeed such a thing as stainless steel screws and washers. Ha!

While we were working together, Steve told me about his plans to get into better shape. He's joined a gym, had all the tests telling him how much of his body is lean and how much is not, and is planning on losing some weight. He challenged me to do the same. The more we talked about it, the more excited we got about how the buddy system could encourage each of us. Before the day was over we set a goal for the two of us to lose a hundred pounds together. We are logging our diet and exercise each day into our respective "My Fitness Pal" apps. Anyone want to join us? The more the merrier!

Vacation Bible School. This summer Church Requel will enjoy another "first ever" event! VBS will be coming to CR the first week of August! Yay! Children's Ministry Director Diana Devolder joined the leadership team last night and cast a vision for some pretty exciting plans for this summer. We are committed to our children and their parents in helping them to know Jesus in a real and personal way. Providing a fun and exciting summer environment to learn about Christ is a natural next step in our KidsMin program. Our first year's VBS will last 3 days, Monday, August 4th through Wednesday, August 6th. Kingdom Rock will begin each evening at 6:30pm. Let's all thank Diana for her commitment to and vision for our children's ministry.

Baptism Next Sunday. Dan Logan will be baptized next Sunday morning. Dan has joined our church and is taking his membership commitment seriously by sharing his guitar and music talents with us. We look forward to celebrating Dan's commitment to Christ and to the church next weekend. Anyone else want to be baptized? We would love to include you in the day's celebrations. If you'd like to know more about baptism at Church Requel, send me an email.

I'm thrilled with the way our church is growing. We do what we know to do to remain as healthy as possible and the Lord provides our growth.  I think of the story from Acts of that first church and how they grew:

"And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Acts 2:47 NIV

I hope you all have a great weekend AND that you choose to spend 75 minutes of it with your Church Requel family Sunday morning at 11am. See you then! - Affectionately, Pastor Mark

#107: Four Jobs Of The Parent [Podcast]

In this week's podcast I talk about the great Sunday we had at Church Requel and then share Sunday's talk to the congregation. This is the second talk in our Raising Amazing Kids series. There are four fundamental jobs for the parent, according to the Bible. #1 - Prepare your kids for life. #2 - Protect your kids in storms. #3 - Play with your kids for fun. #4 - Point your kids to God.

Click to Listen!

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

Four Jobs Of The Parent [Video Sermon]

There are four fundamental jobs for the parent, according to the Bible. #1 - Prepare your kids for life. #2 - Protect your kids in storms. #3 - Play with your kids for fun. #4 - Point your kids to God. I gave this talk this morning, May 4th, 2014 at Church Requel in Mansfield.

Four Jobs Of The Parent from Mark Pierce on Vimeo.

 You can follow along with the online sermon notes or download the fill-in-the-blanks PDF sermon outline.

This Week at CR: 4 Jobs Of The Parent

Good Friday morning everyone!

Anyone else excited about Friday? TGIF, right? It's been a great week here at Church Requel. All oars are in the water. All the pistons are firing. We're moving full steam ahead. We've got some great plans for Sunday and we can't wait to share them with you!

Our theme for this coming Sunday will be "4 Jobs Of The Parent." If you want to have a healthy family, these are the 4 things the Bible tells us we parents have to do. Healthy families are no accident. You need a lot of wisdom. It's kind of funny to think about how easy we all thought parenting would be until we actually became a mom or a dad!

Sunday, we'll learn 3 things you learn from family. We'll identify 3 types of storms your family will face. We'll discover how to build a family storm shelter. Along the way we'll laugh with Bill Cosby and Captian von Trapp. (Want to get started studying early? Here's the link to our sermon notes.)

Wednesday evening I had the privilege to hang out with Brandi, Dan, Paityn, and Tamira, who will be leading your worship singing this coming Sunday. They also have some exciting plans for you. This will be the first time we have Tamira on the keys along with Dan on the guitar. It's pretty amazing! When Dan opens the second song with his guitar rift, you'll wonder how his fingers did that! Ha!

Diana emailed me today about her plans for the kiddos Sunday. Because this is the first weekend of the month, many of our children will be participating in our worship upstairs. After church several of them will be recording our Bible reading for Mother's Day next weekend. They have have special plans in mind too!

Church Requel is growing with all the new families and children. It's a great place to worship our Lord Jesus together. I can't wait to see you all and celebrate with you this coming Sunday.

Have a great weekend in the meantime! See you Sunday! Pastor Mark