Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

Labor Day Weekend at Church Requel

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Aahhh - Labor Day weekend! The one official, federal holiday dedicated to the non-labor of those who labor for a living. The unofficial end of summer here in the States - the weekend when you do all those activities you've been meaning to do all summer long. Cookouts. Family. Camping. Anything that can be done outdoors!

What about you? What are you planning to do this weekend? The Pierces have several family gigs scheduled. Jillian and her whole family are coming up to stay with us tonight. Sunday after church we are planning to drive down to our nephew's place and see our extended family.

Whatever your plans, I hope you'll include Church Requel in your plans on Sunday morning. Brandi, Leia, Amanda and Jacoby will be leading our worship. Paityn will be bringing our announcements. I'm hoping I can coax some of our reading students to come up front with me during the sermon and read our Scripture together.

Speaking of the sermon, we began our current series' study of Acts 12 weeks ago. I'm calling this 12th sermon, "Mission or Comfort," as we study Acts 5:33-42. If you want an advanced look at the talk, open up your Bible app and click on Events. You can also see the sermon notes in your browser window by clicking here.

We also plan to continue the "God Stories" segment this Sunday. We started it last week and enjoyed 3 of you telling us about your Christian journeys. If you'd like to share this Sunday, start thinking now about what God is doing right now in your life. What are you learning? How are you growing? What can you share that might be an encouragement to someone else?

Pancake Breakfast - September 16th. In two weeks Dave Repp and Sheri Nichols will provide us all a wonderful pancake breakfast before church. We'll begin serving at 9:30 am. So come hungry and ready to visit with all your Church Requel friends. No charge for the breakfast either! It just doesn't get better than that!

Putt-Putt Golf / Grill Food / Antique Cars - September 23rd. Just because Labor Day has arrived and the kiddos are back in school, doesn't mean we have to stop our fun summer activities. On September 23rd AFTER CHURCH we'll all head down to Kelly's Miniature Golf to play some putt-putt and eat some grill food! AND the antique car show is that weekend too! You won't want to miss out on having a fun adventure with all your Church Requel friends. This event has been a popular one with young and old alike in years past.

Bonfire, Hot Dogs, S'mores on October 6th. This is our annual fun get together at Sheri's place. October 6th is a Saturday. We'll plan to meet at 6pm. Bring your lawn chair, something to drink, a side dish to share and your bug spray! If you have cooking sticks, bring those too. We'll have Sheri's address for you at church, if you don't already know where she lives.

Since this is Labor Day weekend let me close out this week's newsletter with the best Labor Day Bible verse I know:

"Whatever you do, do it with your whole being, for the Lord and not for men." Colossians 3:23

Love you all much! Pastor Mark

New Worship Element Beginning Sunday

IGood Friday morning Church Requel!

It's good to be back in the saddle this week. Thank you for giving Mary Kay and I the week off last week. Each year on our anniversary we take some time off to rekindle the marriage flame we began 39 years ago. It's been healthy for our relationship. It's hard to believe we are now working towards our 40th year of married life!

Having a week off is also good for me as a pastor as it gives me a chance to reflect on the church without the pressures of a Sunday sermon to prepare. I think that it is time for us to try something new, something a little different, in our worship times together. If you'll allow me some editorial freedom, I'll give you a little background before I tell you the new worship element we're going to begin including in our Sunday services.

Having the week off didn't mean that I didn't hear from many of you. (That's ok, by the way, since most of you didn't even know we were gone until this past Sunday when we weren't at church.) This past week I have heard from more of you than I usually do. There seemed to be a common thread weaving through your messages to me.

Some of you wrote to me about the sermon the week before on the topic of giving to the church. Your messages were heart warming commitments to trust God with your finances. Some of you wrote to me about other ways that God has been working in your life - several answers to prayers, some of which had been lifted to God over a period of years. 

As I was thinking of your stories I received a telephone call from Sheri, one of our leadership team members. She was telling me yet another great story of God's faithfulness in her life. I don't know which of us thought of it first, but before the end of that telephone conversation we just knew that we had to give the opportunity for the people of Church Requel to tell their own God stories. 

At the time we were thinking of a special day set aside for you to tell your stories. But the more I got to thinking about this, the more I became convinced that this is not something that should be relegated to the special or occasional status. The truth is that God is working each and every day in our lives. We should have the opportunity to tell those stories to others in our congregation as they happen and while they are fresh!

Here's another little factoid that has been rolling around in my head. When did the historical church decide that the only person who could tell God stories is the professionally paid pastor? To be sure there is an appropriate role for trained men and women of God to teach correct Christian doctrine. But God does not work in and through the pastor alone. Or maybe an even better way of saying it is that in some ways, each and every one of us has a ministry role. We each use our talents and gifts for God's kingdom in a different way. As a result, we each have a unique God story to tell.

So here is the upshot of this entire newsletter to you. Starting this Sunday we plan to add an additional worship element to our Sunday morning service. We'll call it what I've been calling it here: God Stories. We will set aside time in each Sunday morning worship service for you to share with the Church Requel congregation how God has been working in your lives. Here are some of the things you'll want to keep in mind if you decide to share your own God story.

• Keep it encouraging. Even if the story is not over yet and you are going through a difficult journey, you'll want to affirm God's faithfulness even in the shadow of doubt.
• Keep it to the point. We want to give others a chance to share their stories too.
• Keep it understandable. Stories of any kind don't work if people can't hear you - so we'll use our wireless handheld microphone.

Now - here is my promise back to you. If you will keep it encouraging, to the point, and understandable, I will keep it flexible. By that I mean that if more people feel the Spirit of God moving them to share their God story than what we have allocated time for on any given Sunday morning, then your worship team (Brandi and me at the moment) will adjust or delete the rest of our plans for that morning's service to allow God's Spirit to reign. After all we come together to hear from Him!

We'll start this coming Sunday morning. Midway through our worship service, after our singing, communion and prayer time - but before the sermon - we'll invite you to share your God story if you feel God is moving you to share. If no one has a story to share, no problem. We'll just go right into the sermon. (And it's a good one! Check out the sermon notes here.)

I'm excited to begin this new worship journey with you all. There are so many wonderful, powerful and encouraging things that God is accomplishing through all of you! Too often you all don't have the opportunity that I have to hear about these stories. That's going to change this Sunday! We always say that you don't want to miss a Sunday to be with your church family. Now that is going to be doubly true because we just never know what may happen when we go to Church Requel! Should be an exciting time together.

I have a lot more to tell you, but I'll save it for another time. Love you all and can't wait to see you again! Pastor Mark

Sunday - Back To School Supplies

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Anyone else amazed that this summer has flown by so fast?! I remember when we scheduled the canoeing adventure last spring. It seemed so far in the future! Now it's six days in the rear view mirror. The picture to the right is of all those brave souls who paddled down the Mohican!

I loved that we had such a wide age range on the trip. One is never too old or too young to go canoeing! When I was 4 years old I begged my Dad to take me out in his canoe when we were camping alongside a lake in Canada. Both my mom and grandma told both me and Dad that I was way too young to go out on that lake. But Dad took me, warning me sternly not to ever stand up in the canoe.

You can guess what happened. I stood up and flipped the canoe over. I was wearing a life vest but I didn't know enough to turn myself face up. I didn't even know enough to hold my breath. I thought I was a goner... right before Dad picked me up. It was to be the first time he saved my life. You can betcha that we both heard plenty from the womenfolk in the camp. (I'm guessing he heard more than me.)

Sunday at Church Requel. Brandi, Trish and Missie have prepared an awesome worship music set for you Sunday morning. Songs include "Lay Me Down" by Chris Tomlin, "No Longer Slaves" by Bethel, "This I Believe" by Hillsong, and "God Is On The Move" by 7eventh Time Down.

Nancy will bring our announcements. Roger will lead our prayer time together.

The sermon Sunday is from Acts 5:1-11 and is titled, "Hypocrisy In Generosity."

For the second week in a row the Back-To-School table will be set up in the front of the sanctuary. If you or someone in your family needs school supplies please come up before or after church and help yourself. If you are willing to shop some of the Back-To-School sales leave your donation for our school families on the table. We will make this available again next Sunday, August 19th.

Back To School Sermon Next Sunday. Speaking of Back-To-School, next Sunday we are planning to take a break from our Acts sermon series for a special single sermon called, "Making My Time Count." I know there are many time pressures on our families - so many great activities to choose from. But this also leads to a high pressure environment at home. How do we make our time count for the best? That's what we'll be talking about next Sunday on August 19th.

Next Event - Kelly's Putt Putt. In 4 weeks from this Sunday, we are planning to go down to Kelly's Putt Putt after church. We'll enjoy Kelly's grilled foods, Putt-Putt for the whole family, and we'll also enjoy the Antique Car Show! Yay!!! Make sure to put September 23rd on your calendar!

Hope you all have a great weekend! Hope to see you all Sunday morning at 11am! Love, Pastor Mark 

Younger Generation Church Requel Sunday

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

What a huge weekend for our church this weekend! Cleaning the kiddos area this morning. Canoeing Saturday morning. Worship service Sunday led by the largest group of students ever in the summer history of Church Requel! In true Christian fashion let's start with the last first!

Children Serve This Sunday! The photo above right is from our praise team rehearsal last evening. What a great worship team we have all rehearsed and ready to go for Sunday morning! Once more we see that our children are not only the church of tomorrow, they are the church of today here at Church Requel!

Paityn, Leia, Bubbie and Jacoby help sing on our worship team. They join the adults - Brandi, Chris, Tamara and Amanda. It's such a large team that yours truly will need to preach from the large pulpit because there is no room left on the platform. It's filled with our young people! What a great problem to have. (And truth be known I love preaching from the large wooden pulpit every now and again. Such a rich tradition! I feel like I stand shoulder to shoulder with pastors from the past who have served since the late 1880s!

But we do not only have students serving on the praise team. Our young people will serve in just about every area of the church this Sunday morning. Grayden and Cohen serve today in the tech booth. Leia will bring our announcements. Paityn will sing a special song. Anna and Sicily will play a flute duet for our offertory. Violet will read our Scripture.

Isn't that just terrific? We should fill the church Sunday morning to cheer them all on!

Tomorrow Morning - Canoeing at 10am! 

we will all gather down at the Mohican Adventures Canoe Livery and Fun Center located at 3045 OH-3, Loudonville. Here is the Google Maps Link:

https://goo.gl/maps/sUHBTR9PyKv

The cost will be $20 per person, unless you are under 10 years old - then it is free. The canoe adventure is 7 miles long and takes about 2 hours to complete. We'll find a place to enjoy lunch together afterwards. Doesn't this sound like fun? This event was voted by you as the best summer option. Don't miss it! 

One last word about the canoeing adventure tomorrow morning. Don't be late! Arrive at the canoe livery before 10am. We will pay with the church credit card at one time for the entire group so we can get the $20 per person group rate. You can bring your cash or your checks made out to Church Requel to reimburse the church. But if you arrive after 10am, you'll have to pay the canoe livery directly for the full price of $28.

Sunday Morning Sermon - The title for Sunday's sermon is "The Way of Christian Sharing.'' We consider Acts 4:32-37 and discover that all the Christians had all things in common. So does this mean we should share everything we have with everybody? We look closely at the basis for Christian sharing and how it worked. Along the way we also discover how we should share with one another.

Want a head start? Here are the sermon notes that you can view in your browser. You can also see them in your Bible App under Events.

If you read this far thanks a bunch! I love our church. Did you know that there are many others who follow us online every Sunday morning? The picture to the left is of Diane who watches pretty faithfully every week. She's been following us for the last year or so. Recently her family moved to Indiana. While they searched for a new church home, she and her husband Steve, have been watching the church services here online. Diane even purchased a Church Requel T-shirt and sent us a photo!

Another couple - Cheryl and Jack Buckley watch our worship service just about every Sunday morning together. They live in Virginia.

Finally, I learned this week that a small house church meets regularly in England. They use our sermon videos and sermon notes for their Bible study together. Keep the faith! You just never know how God will multiply your efforts for the Kingdom!

Love you all much! Pastor Mark