Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

Leap Year Concert / March Of Prayer

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

This is a leap year! Yay! We get an extra day in February. The extra day just happens to be on a weekend, Saturday in this case. So it only seems logical to me that we should have a three-day weekend, right? Alas, even in leap year, we only get one Saturday. It's beyond my understanding!

Still we have one extra day this year and this month. (Just not this week. Hmmm... still confused.) The question is: what will you do with YOUR extra leap year day?

I have a suggestion. Plan to attend the Leap Year Concert Saturday night at church. Pastor Paul Lintern has a special talent for taking popular songs and rewriting them with Christian lyrics. Paul is calling this a retro song concert. What are retro songs, you ask? Retro songs are “altared” to embrace the Faith.  Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Glenn Miller all collaborated with Paul for this concert.

Yours truly is also a collaborator. I will be joining Paul for three of the songs, adding my voice and my ukulele. Also our own Chris Thoman will be running the sound board for the concert - thank you Chris!

The concert begins at 6:30pm and should run about 90 minutes. There will be tons of snacks. All the fun will take place in the "Great Room" of the Chome - that's the large living room area behind the sanctuary. Plan on coming down to the church plenty early to get yourself a good seat and to visit with all your friends.

March of Prayer Begins Sunday - March 1st

The schedule for all the March dates is on the left. Click on the picture for a larger, clearer view. We also have printed up schedules and included them in your program Sunday morning. Extra schedules can be found on the communion tables. 

If you took one of the schedules we provided you a couple weeks ago, you should throw it away and replace it with one of these new ones. A few of the churches have changed their dates.

This is the second year for the March of Prayer. Each evening at 6pm we will gather at a different church for worship and prayer. Each church will lead the evening's service with their own unique talents and culture.  

I encourage you to attend as many as possible for you.

You'll discover the richness of the larger Christian family of faith as you join in the many different styles of worship and prayer. Many of us who attended last year felt we grew in our faith and in our understanding of Christianity. There is a much larger church out there! We have more brothers and sisters in Christ than we think! Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Church Requel and I LOVE the way we worship and I LOVE all of you! But there is a great value for us to appreciate those in other churches too!

March of Prayer at Church Requel ONE week from Today!

Speaking of loving Church Requel, you can also demonstrate your love and support by attending our own evening on Friday, March 6th. Our entire praise band will be singing and playing many of the songs you know. Brian, Mary Kay and Roger will be leading our prayer sessions. Dave, Brian, Brandi and Mark will be singing and playing special songs for you.

Last year the March of Prayer evening at Church Requel was the most attended worship service of our year! We are praying that we enjoy a large crowd again next Friday.

We would appreciate you coming and hosting! Come with your hearts and ears open. If someone needs to know where the bathrooms are, you can tell them. You can be friendly and help the Marvicsins and the Jacobs greet people. You can let Juanita know that you will help out with snacks.

It will be a big night. Don't miss it! And don't miss the opportunity to invite family and friends!

Sunday Morning Worship.

We have exciting plans for Sunday morning. You may remember that the first Sunday of February we attempted to have the largest choir we've ever enjoyed. Well that didn't work out, mostly due to sickness. So we are going to try again for Sunday, March 1st. Right now we are expecting Brandi, Chris, Tamara, Cindy, Amy, Olivia, Aaron, Saudaie, Bubby, Sivon, Leia, Paityn, Alice and Skylar. YOU are welcome to sing with the choir too. Just show up for rehearsal Sunday morning at 8:30.

Our sermon Sunday morning is titled, "How To P-R-A-Y For One Another." When someone asks you for prayer, do you secretly and inwardly groan? Do you struggle with your faith to believe that God will actually answer your prayer? Have you ever promised to pray, but then forgotten all about it?

Sunday we'll learn a pattern that you can use to pray for other people. This will help your faith and theirs also. I'm pretty excited about this talk. The timing is perfect coming on the first day of the March of Prayer, when we will be joining with many other Christians to pray.

I encourage you to get a head start on the sermon. How? Each week I publish my sermon notes on the Bible app. You can also find these notes by clicking on this link: http://bible.com/events/7076880.

Work Continues This Week On The Sanctuary.

This week has been the dirtiest and dustiest week ever at 2 Marion Avenue. Pastor Paul set up his scaffolding in the back P.A.W. side of the sanctuary and pulled down a lot of the plaster in the corner. The first day he did it, we both had to just leave because the dust was so thick. Every pew was coated! Yuck is an understatement.

Rather than re-plaster, Paul made the executive decision to paint the bricks white (these are the bricks behind the old plaster.) It looks good! Also Paul and his crew vacuumed up the excess dust so that our sanctuary will be usable Sunday morning.

The new carpeting is scheduled to be installed this Monday. Installation should take two to four days. It's going to look fantastic!

After all this work, the sanctuary will need a good cleaning next week. Many many thank-you's to Juanita, who has already assembled a clean-up team for next week. If you'd like to join the 5-member team, I'm sure Juanita would love the extra help. Check with her on Sunday for details of date and time.

Big Bathroom News Too!

I don't know if any of you noticed or not, but the bathroom upstairs has now been painted a powder blue. Goodbye red! Also, men, have you noticed the brand new toilet installed in our bathroom downstairs? Yay!

We are so fortunate to have Pastor Paul as our ministry partner. Come support him at his concert tomorrow night at 6:30. When you see him next tell him "thank you" and an "I love you" would go a long ways too!

New Curtains In the Nursery

Not to be outdone, both Dave and Becky have contributed in a big way to the re-beautification of our church. I told you last week that Dave came in and rebuilt the wall in our downstairs conference room. It looks so much better.

Becky also contributed her own talents. She made new curtains for the Nursery... from scratch! With a sewing machine! Wow! Not only does it look fantastic, the new curtains should help keep the nursery warm in the winter and cooler in the summer. Thanks so much Becky!!!

Upcoming: Praise Team Practice and Readers Theater

I've already mentioned to you that your praise team will be leading lots of worship music on Friday evening, March 6th. They are all staying after the worship service Sunday morning to practice for Friday. We will be bringing in lunch for all of them and their families Sunday after church.

Also very special!!! On Sunday morning March 8th, we will enjoy a very special Readers Theater of the last 8 chapters of the Book of Acts. These chapters tell the exciting story of the Apostle Paul and his arrest in Jerusalem, his journey to Rome, and his shipwreck along the way. Our four readers, Eddie Walker, Brian Betts, Cindy Thoman and Grayden Pierce, will bring this story alive with their dramatic reading. This 45-minute presentation will take the place of our sermon time that morning. It's creative. It's dramatic. It's Scripture. You won't want to miss it!!!

Have you noticed? For a small church, we sure do have quite a lot going on!!! Wow!!! I sure am glad I'm a member of Church Requel. Aren't you? Hope to see you all this weekend - multiple times! Love you all much. Pastor Mark

Remodel Underway!

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Wow! What a week! What an amazing congregation! I LOVE this church! Thank You Lord!

Those are the words that I have been repeating to myself over and over all week long. I watched with wonder and thanksgiving as three different teams worked hard to beautify this physical building in which we worship. Saturday morning a team of 14 came and invested their whole morning in cleaning up the downstairs area. Sunday after church an uncounted number stayed and pulled up the carpet and everything underneath. What a dirty, yucky mess. Yet you all never stopped.

Then on Monday morning I watched a team of men from Oakland Lutheran install a brand new platform that will give our worship team so much more room. What a blessing they were. They finished the entire project in a single day! I can't wait for you to see it. It looks so much better! 

That's not even the end of it. The blessings and wonders just continue! First I received a telephone call from Juanita. She apologized to me that she could not help with the carpet pull. She just didn't have the strength, she said. What she didn't say was that she worked hard all Saturday morning to clean up downstairs! Of course I told her not to worry about it. She wasn't worried. She actually called because she wants to come in and lead a sanctuary clean up team once all the work is done and the dust has settled! I'm so humbled by her can-do attitude.

Also, Saturday morning Dave Repp came in with the rest of the cleanup crew, but he veered off on a challenging task that really needed done. He worked on the wall in the conference room that has been deteriorating for years. He ripped out the whole wall right down to the bricks. Then, without fanfare, he came back this week and installed new drywall. I made him stop just long enough to snap the photo on the right.

Some of you may be wondering, 'what's next?' The vendor for our sanctuary carpeting came in this week and measured. The carpet has been ordered. The installation will take place the first week of March. That's going to be cutting it close as you may recall that we will host the March of Prayer on Friday night, March 6th. 

In the meantime we will worship with the bare floors and the smell of sawdust! Also Paul has told me that he plans to put up the scaffolding in the back of the sanctuary and patch the plaster in the ceiling.

I forgot to mention him in this newsletter of wonders, but Paul really is the inspiration behind this entire project. Paul scheduled everything and inspired all the different teams to work on the church. And he personally has tirelessly spent many hours high up on the scaffolding in the front of the sanctuary. When you look up at the ceiling, you won't see any sign of his work - which is just the way he wants it. No cracks. And the paint matches perfectly.

Thanks Paul! Your faith encourages all of our faith as well! What a wonderful partner to share this ministry!

Sunday morning worship. The worship team of Don, Mark, Dave, Brian, Chris, Brandi, Trish and Missie will be back this Sunday morning. Here are the songs we plan to sing: (1) "How Great Is Your Love by Phil Wickham; (2) “Praise Him Forever" by Chris Tomlin; (3) "10,000 Reasons" by Matt Redman; and (4) “Stand In Your Love" by Josh Baldwin. I LOVE playing and singing with this team. Like all the folks I mentioned up above, they are all so giving of their time and talent.

Sunday morning sermon. Our sermon title is "Where Then Is My Hope?" The earliest written book in the Bible asks this question, "Where is my hope?" (Job 17:15). At one time or another in our lives, we all ask this question. Times of disappointment, times of struggle, times of despair. Sunday we will talk both about what we hope for as well as how to keep our hope alive in tough times.

I'm pretty excited about this talk. I had something happen in the writing of this sermon that hasn't happened before, as best I can recollect. I outlined the sermon with all the Bible verses early in the week - as I usually do. Then, yesterday, as I sat down to write it, I had a new idea - a new way of illustrating the talk - that occurred to me. It worked all the way through. I didn't have to change a single word in my outline. Looking back now, it's almost as if the outline was written for a talk that I hadn't yet conceived of. How about that!?

Leap Of Faith Concert - Saturday Feb. 29th. What are you doing with your extra day this Leap Year? We have a great suggestion. Come to the church Chome (behind the sanctuary) and listen to Pastor Paul (and a little of Pastor Mark) share some fun retro songs, songs that are “altared” to embrace the Faith.  Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Glenn Miller all collaborated with Paul for this concert. Come and enjoy. Day - THIS Saturday, Feb. 29th. Start time - 6:30pm. Expected length - 75 minutes.

March Of Prayer - Again! This year we will celebrate the March of Prayer again beginning March 1st through Easter. Many different churches will offer a worship and prayer service each evening at 6pm. Our church has accepted the challenge to host on Friday evening, March 6th from 6-8pm. Would you plan to come AND plan to bring family and friends? Join the celebration! Join the prayer! 

Singspiration - March 29th. On the fifth Sunday months we celebrate with a special worship service we call a Singspiration. The entire worship will consist of music. This is your chance to use your musical abilities to praise Jesus. Let Brandi know if you'd like to participate with your voice or musical instrument.

Breakfast - March 29th. We will also enjoy a breakfast together BEFORE the worship. Breakfast will be served at 10am. Thank-you Cindy Thoman for being willing to lead the charge and make breakfast available.

Ok - I've written enough. I hope you can feel the excitement and enthusiasm behind the words today. We have had many different high points at Church Requel over the last 10 years, but I think this one may be the highest. This I know - I am one lucky pastor to have you all as a congregation. Thanks for the joy! Love you all, Pastor Mark

Valentine's Weekend - Cleaning & Carpet Ripping

Happy Valentine's Friday Church Requel!

Valentine's Day only falls on Newsletter Friday about once every seven years so we at least need to mention it. With my love of history, I researched Saint Valentine in an attempt to discover his connection to greeting cards, chocolates and flowers. Boy, was I ever misdirected!

Turns out, Saint Valentine has no connection at all to our modern day holiday except for his name. He did exemplify great love - true love - by providing comfort to Christians condemned to die. Then he was martyred for his faith on February 14, 269AD. That's right - we celebrate the love holiday for the day Valentine was executed. Hmmm... that sure puts a different spin on it.

So where does the romantic connection come from? Fast forward a little more than a thousand years to the 14th century, where we find a poet named Geoffrey Chaucer. You remember him, right? The author of the Canterbury Tales? Turns out he also wrote a poem about "Valentines." Here we are 7 centuries later and most can't remember Canterbury Tales or Chaucer, but we're all ga-ga over Valentines.

Gotta wonder what both Valentine and Chaucer would think about today's holiday!

How Valentine's Day REALLY Got Started. So where did all the amorous utopian concepts of the February 14th LUV come from? One advantage of being born in the 1950s is that I actually lived through it and can now tell you how today's version of Valentine's Day came about. Back in the early 1960s, the greeting card industry got together with the chocolate industry, the flower industry, and the shoe box industry to plot and plan. Roswell historians remember this as GCFS day. Seems like President's Day wasn't really making anyone any real money so the GCFS cabal was formed and Valentine's Day was born.

Of course even the powerful GCFS collusion can't just "declare" a day to be a holiday. (This was before the 1985-86 Congress, when one out of every three bills declared a national holiday about something, like National Garlic Day - April 19th or National High Five Day - also April 19th. The resulting crash of holidays necessitated an official arbitrator of all holidays and thus the 752-page, Chase's Calendar Of Events, became a reality. These days you can't name a holiday without checking in with Editor Holly McGuire.) But like I said, the GCFS conspiracy didn't have the advantage of either the 1985 Congress or Chase's Calendar.

How could the GCFS grow their own holiday? They decided to go for the long play. The GCFS started with little kids in elementary school. 'What if,' they wondered, 'we convinced parents and teachers to force children to decorate a shoe box, cut a hole in the top, and then we make little heart cards for the kiddos to sign and deposit inside the decorated boxes? We could even make a disgusting little hard candy in the shape of a heart and put words on it.' And thus a holiday was born.

It's interesting to note that the Flower Industry was none too pleased with this plan as it left them out of the school scheme altogether. But really, you can't expect little kids to buy roses. The eventual rise of the Flower Industry and the resulting fall of the Shoe Box industry is another fascinating story, but it will have to wait for another time. Suffice it to say that the Shoe Box industry got the boot!

Teachers and parents did their best to make sure that each student received a Valentine. Sadly this was before flirtations with American Socialism was popularized, so there always were larger hearts and smaller hearts. Some children (and here - in the interest of confidentiality - I will not mention any names) received smaller hearts than other children. So now fifty to sixty years later, we really can't blame some adults for having smaller hearts than other people.

Thus, a $19.6 billion holiday was born. Valentine lent his name. Chaucer wrote a poem. But the GCF has overseen the greatest made up holiday ever in the history of mankind. Somehow they kept their own existence under wraps. No one else knows. They even came up with another name for GCF - Greatest Common Factor - that math whiz kids like to talk about. Little do they know that the real greatest common factor is that everybody has a need to love and to be loved! So the next time you buy a card, or flowers, or chocolates, at least you'll know how it all got started.

And now... onto the real news of the day. (Honestly folks, I don't know how the above happened. I just sat down and started typing. I have very little control over these fingers!)

Clean Up Saturday Morning. Join the fun tomorrow morning at 9am to help clean up the downstairs area of the church. So far the clean up crew includes Dave and Becky, Paul, Brandi and Eddie, Mark and Mary Kay, Don and Stephenie, Sherman, Cindy and Sheri. But we have room for more! Hope to see you tomorrow morning at 9am.

Carpet Pull Sunday After Church. The construction in the sanctuary shifts into high gear this week. Pastor Paul has been patching the ceiling all week long. Sunday, after church, we will pull up the carpeting in the sanctuary. If you have one, bring a cutter tool with you. However, the best tools we need are as many willing arms as possible to make quick work of it. How many times in life do you get the opportunity to rip things up?

Worship Plans For Sunday. The praise band will be back this Sunday morning singing and playing praises to our Lord! We hope you're as excited as we are. Here's what we'll be singing and playing: (1) "You Never Let Go" by Matt Redman; (2) "Revelation Song" by Kari Jobe; (3) "Stand In Your Love" by Josh Baldwin; and (4) "Every Day" by Hillsong. 

We will also learn a brand new song that I'm hoping will become a regular worship song for us. "How Great Is Your Love" by Phil Wickham is a powerful and easy song for the congregation to sing together.

L.O.V.E. Was Made For You And Me. That's the title of our sermon Sunday morning. Valentine's Day reminds us every year to celebrate the romantic love in our lives. However, our Christian faith reminds us every DAY to love all of those in our lives, especially our family of fellow Christ followers. Sunday we take a cue from jazz singer Nat King Cole to discover that for the Christ follower, L-O-V-E really was made for you and me! Want a head start? Here is the sermon outline and all the Bible verses: http://bible.com/events/7060662

Leap Of Faith Concert - Feb. 29th. What are you doing with your extra day this Leap Year? We have a great suggestion. Come to the church Chome (behind the sanctuary) and listen to Pastor Paul (and a little of Pastor Mark) share some fun retro songs. Retro songs are songs that are “altared” to embrace the Faith.  Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Glenn Miller all collaborated with Paul for this concert. Come and enjoy.

Day - Saturday, Feb. 29th.
Start time 6:30pm.
Expected length - 75 minutes.

March Of Prayer - Again! This year we will celebrate the March of Prayer again beginning March 1st through Easter. Many different churches will offer a worship and prayer service each evening at 6pm.

Our church has accepted the challenge to host on Friday evening, March 6th from 6-8pm. We enjoyed the largest attendance for this service than for any other last year! Our musicians are already prepping for this night.

Would you plan to come AND plan to bring family and friends? Join the celebration! Join the prayer! You'll find a schedule on the communion tables in the sanctuary.

Feels like these fingers of mine are finally finished. Pardon my muse! Ha! Just one more thing - know how much I love each one of you! Seriously, I hope you have a great day and that you will come and join our fellowship this weekend. Can't wait to see you!

Love. Pastor Mark

The Band Is Back! Sanctuary Improvements Begin!

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

The praise band will be back this Sunday morning singing and playing praises to our Lord! We hope you're as excited as we are. Here's what we'll be singing and playing: (1) "You Never Let Go" by Matt Redman; (2) "Revelation Song" by Kari Jobe; (3) "Stand In Your Love" by Josh Baldwin; and (4) "Every Day" by Hillsong. 

We will also learn a brand new song that I'm hoping will become a regular worship song for us. "How Great Is Your Love" by Phil Wickham is a powerful and easy song for the congregation to sing together.

Neighborhood Meal Tomorrow Evening.

We are hoping for a good volunteer crew to come help serve our neighbors a free, warm meal Saturday night. We put out a sign up sheet last Sunday and here's who signed up: Mark & Mary Kay, Brandi, Steve and Cindy, Olivia, Chris & Tamara with kiddos, and Juanita. We would love to include you too, even if you haven't signed up to help. The more the merrier!

If you'd like to join in the Saturday night fun, show up at 4pm. We begin serving at 5pm and are usually cleaned up and walking out the door by 6pm.

February Sanctuary Construction Plans - Pardon Our Dust!

The next few weeks will bring some nice improvements to our Church Requel sanctuary! Don't be surprised if you see some scaffolding erected when you come to church this weekend. Pastor Paul would like to do some patching to our ceiling before we begin laying our carpeting.

Speaking of carpeting - we are hoping many of you will plan to stay after the service A WEEK FROM SUNDAY - Feb. 16th - to help us pull up the existing carpeting. The carpentry team from Oakland Lutheran will begin working on the new platform the following day. We have also now received a quote from Washington Floors for the new carpet install. When they came out and measured, they estimated 4 days for the installation. This means we will have one Sunday - Feb. 23rd - when we will be worshiping without any carpeting. That should be a special morning, don't you think?

Downstairs Cleaning Team - Saturday, Feb. 15th.

We are still planning on cleaning out the downstairs area a week from tomorrow morning at 9am. Everything downstairs is such a cluttered mess right now. We would like to throw away much of the clutter and find good storage solutions for the rest.

Mary Kay got a team started including Paul, Mark & Mary Kay, Dave & Becky, Brandi, and Don & Stephenie. 

We will have a sign-up sheet in the lobby this Sunday morning. If you can come for a couple hours the following Saturday at 9am to help, that would be great. We just need willing hands and organizing minds.

The Pastor's Charge Wraps Up Sunday.

We have invested the last two preaching opportunities to talk about what you should expect from a pastor. There are nine charges found in Acts 20. So far we have covered six of them. We will wrap up this mini series this Sunday morning.

I have published the sermon notes for Sunday morning here: http://bible.com/events/7056116

Why do I give you the sermon notes before I even deliver the sermon? There are three reasons. (1) I'd like you to have the opportunity to begin reviewing the Scriptures. (2) I'd like you to have the opportunity to begin praying - both for me as I deliver the sermon and for yourself that God's Spirit would also prepare your heart for what He will have for you Sunday. (3) I'd like to give you an opportunity to invite family and friends. Perhaps it helps to give you some idea of what will be happening Sunday morning.

By the way - we are very close to the end of our Sequel and Requel series. You may be saying that after 54 sermons, "It's about time!" Others may be saying, "What? We have 7 more chapters." I make no apology for working our way verse by verse through the book of Acts. I believe it has been one of the grand highlights for me personally and my preaching ministry. As far as the next 7 chapters are concerned - they all are telling one story... the story of Paul's arrest in Jerusalem and his trip back to Rome. 

SPECIAL NEWSLETTER INSIDE INFO: I'm not sure exactly which Sunday this will happen yet, but eventually Brandi and I would like to put together a Readers Theater with multiple voices reading these last 7 chapters all the way through. I think this will give you all a unique understanding of this story. It will be like having a top-down, arial view of how the Book of Acts ends. Would you like to join the Readers Theater fun? I hope many of you would like to join up! Let Brandi know and she will include you!

"March Of Prayer - Again" Right Around The Corner!

Many of us remember last year's March of Prayer fondly. The March of Prayer got started as the brain child of Paul and Jordon. They wondered if it would be possible to have 31 days in a row of worship and prayer, each night in a different Richland County church with that church's unique style. Well, not only did we fill up the entire month of Marcy but we scheduled right through Easter!

We are doing it AGAIN this year. The entire schedule from March through Easter has already been filled up. Now there's talk of filling up the rest of April! (Can May be too far behind?")

The Richland County Commissioners even recognized Religious Freedom Day this week and thanked the local clergy for leading this prayer effort!

Church Requel has signed up to take one of the first worship evenings. We will be hosting Friday, March 6th from 6-8pm. We hope our entire congregation will come out that night to support our worship and prayer team. Many thanks to Brandi, who has taken on the task of leading our worship and prayer plans for that evening.

We have published the list of churches participating in March. You can see the March schedule above right. Click on the image and it will enlarge for you. Also, you'll find the entire schedule in your bulletin this Sunday morning. We've also placed extras on the communion tables so that you might give some away to your family and friends!

Wrap It Up! Wow! Another long letter! I never know how these Friday newsletters are going to go. Believe it or not, I just open up my laptop on Fridays and begin typing. Maybe I need an editor! Ha! Seriously though, what I hope to do with these weekly tomes is not only just to inform you of all the cool things happening, but also to transparently reveal my heart to you, our loving church family. I know I am so fortunate to lead you. Thank you for all your love, support and prayers! Hope to see you all - perhaps multiple times - this weekend. Love, Pastor Mark