Good Friday morning Church Requel,
What a great week for our church! Yesterday morning ten of your fellow parishioners showed up to help clean and organize the church. We made a lot of progress, but still have some more work to get done. The church looks so much better! Many thanks go out to Bessica, Dave, Dinah, Don, Jack, Roger, Sheri, Stephenie, and Tamira.
Our team had three objectives: #1 - clean and organize KidsMin; #2 - clear out a space for a food pantry; and #3 - spruce up the church as we get ready for Easter. Hopefully you all will notice a big improvement when you show up at church this weekend, either for the neighborhood meal and/or worship on Sunday morning.
What was so cool about this effort is that it all came together at the last minute. Our staff and management team have been working our way through 10 Steps to a Great Easter, an online article written by Rick Witter. Our staff was trying to figure out when would be a good time to call a workday. Then, Wednesday night, our leadership team met and the ladies Bible study met. We talked about the need to clean up the church during both meetings and people said, "Hey I can help. Let's do it tomorrow morning." Just like that. Simple.
Is it possible that your planning-oriented pastor makes this job too hard sometimes? Hmmm....
As we walked around the church, one person after another said, "That's a real eyesore." "Why is that there?" "Couldn't we place that over here?" "Could we just throw that away?" Quickly I learned to just get out of the way and let them work. Bessica told me it was therapeutic for her. She likes to organize. Sheri is thrilled because we have created a new space for a food pantry. Dave and Dinah AND Paul are thrilled because the stairwell in the very front of the church is completely cleared of all the stuff on the landing and the ramp on the bottom stairwell that hasn't been used in the last 3 years. I'm thrilled because we finally threw away the world's dirtiest fan ever!
Two more cool moments I must share with you. Twice during the workday I received a phone call from a parishioner who had an emergency happening in their lives and they asked me to pray. I told them both that there were lots of fellow church goers with me and both times everybody circled up and we prayed together for the families going through tough times. Isn't that awesome?
The other cool moment came when everyone left to go home. More than one asked me when was the next time they could come over and help out? Wow! I was immediately reminded of James admonition: "You have not because you do not ask God." (4:2) Thanks everyone for reminding me that we share this ministry together!
Worship Team Sunday Morning! We will also be blessed when we come together for worship Sunday morning. Last night Jeff, Tamira, Trish, Dan and Ian practiced together. Here are the songs we'll be singing with them: "Come Thou Fount;" "This Is Amazing Grace;" "Whom Shall I Fear?;" and "Only You."
Nancy will remind us of all our exciting Easter plans. Roger will be leading our communion and prayer time together. Yours truly will bring the sermon - "Mirrored Measurements" - from Luke 6:37-42. We should have a great time with our Lord together!
Feed The Hungry Saturday Night. I feel like I'm writing this newsletter to you all out of order. As Bessica wrote on Facebook last Thursday: "I found out my pastor is more human than I thought." Haha. Yep - it's true. Just ask any of my kiddos, my wife or if you want to hear the really good stuff, check in with my sister, Kimberly, or my brother, Todd! (My son-in-law, Dave, responded that I'm not really human at all. That was more of an aim at humor than a betrayal of a family secret. LOL.)
Anyway, Saturday night - as in tomorrow night - we will feed about a hundred folks in the neighborhood, who look to us for a warm, free, hearty meal. Sheri leads the charge. Let's all show up to help her out at 4pm. Our neighbors will begin eating at 5. We should be finished walking out the door by 6:30pm. If you want to really knock the ball out of the park, show up with a dessert to share!
Easter Weekend Plans. It's hard to believe, but Easter is only a couple weekends away! We have some really exciting plans. I hope you will be able to enjoy the best Easter ever here at Church Requel.
First, we'll be joining many other local churches for a combined Good Friday worship experience. We are expecting over 700 people to come together. Last Friday I wrote to you that I would be bringing the sermon that evening. However, I have since found out that more than one person was asked to preach. I guess that's what happens sometimes in a collaborative effort. It's totally cool - this is an incredibly busy time of year for me. I'll be participating in other ways. Mary Kay and I will be stationed at one of the communion tables and I will be sharing the closing prayer. I'm hoping several of you will also be singing in the community choir from all the different churches. How cool is that going to be?
Second, on Saturday morning twenty of us will join about 500 other folks in Mansfield for the Resurrection Breakfast at the Mid-Ohio Conference Center. We have really lucked out. Tickets have completely sold out, but we have a really good group going! Coach Jim Tressel will be our featured speaker. We'll also hear some fabulous music from the Colonial City Quartet. The breakfast should be pretty amazing too!
Finally, I got my first glimpse this week at our worship plans for Easter morning here at Church Requel. We are so very fortunate to have Brandi as our worship director! We will have a Readers Theater led by Fred, Jennifer, and Eddie. Our worship praise team will include Brandi, Stephenie, Dinah, Chris, Tamara, Jan and Ron! Wow! (We even had to purchase an extra microphone - more on that later.) Our kiddos will have a fantastic KidsMin and they will all enjoy an Easter Egg Hunt after the worship service here on the church property (pray for good weather!)
Speaking of Easter - this Sunday morning in the programs you will find a special invitation for our Church Requel Easter service. This invitation is not there to invite YOU. We expect you! We want you to take the invitation and give it away to a friend.
Above you'll see the first glimpse of this invitation fresh from the printer. (Again, thank you so much Brandi!!!) Let's do all we can to get these invitation cards into the hands of people who would want to come.
According to Dr. Thom Rainer, 82% of unchurched people will be likely to attend church if invited. Those are pretty good odds! Who will you be inviting?
Our Leadership Team Met this past Wednesday night. In addition to praying for our ministry and each of you, we made 3 decisions that I think you would want to know about. First, we decided to get started with the food pantry mentioned earlier. Our thoughts are that we don't want anyone coming to this church ever leaving hungry - spiritually or physically. We were shocked to learn a few weeks ago of one of our families whose cupboards were completely bare. We took that family to the grocery store. Next time, we want to take them to the grocery closet in our church.
Second, we talked a great deal about our process of assimilating new people who visit our church. We have had many visitors lately, but haven't had the opportunity to follow up with many because we don't receive their connection cards. If folks want to remain anonymous we will, of course, respect that choice. However, we feel we just haven't given enough emphasis to the connect cards. We'll be doing some new training for our greeting teams to get the connect cards into the hands of new folks. And we'll be offering some great Christian best-selling books at the conclusion of our worship services to any new folks who turn in his or her card. Hey - a little incentive never hurt anyone, right?
Finally, we made the decision to purchase a new, handheld wireless microphone which can be used by our praise team and our prayer team. This will be a microphone that could go anywhere within our sanctuary so that people could speak (or pray) and be heard by everyone.
Pray! Pray! Pray! Remember Adele before the Lord this morning. Adele is the beautiful little blind granddaughter of Ken & Karen. She was rushed to the emergency room yesterday with a rapid heart rate. She's home now with a monitor and a very concerned family. Please also pray for Don & Stephenie. They have an unspoken prayer request, but would very much appreciate your prayers today. Finally pray for Mary Kay and me as we head down to Columbus this morning to talk to a surgeon about Mary Kay's shoulder. Will surgery restore her strength? We need wisdom and guidance.
Ok... longest Church Requel newsletter EVER! So much good news to share. I hope you got through most of it. Thanks for being such a gracious and loving congregation. I hope to see most of you this weekend! With much love for each of you, Pastor Mark
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