Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

Worship Plans For Last Day In February

Good Saturday morning Church Requel!

Yes, I know. Saturday. Not Friday. Your normally very scheduled pastor is running a day behind! Ha! This may be a relief to some of my less scheduled friends.

Sunday Morning Plans. Here is what we have scheduled for tomorrow morning... assuming our “schedule” works! Ha! Our band will lead you in 3 different songs: “Death Was Arrested” by North Point Worship; “This I Believe (The Creed)” by Hillsong; and “More To Come” by Passion. The first and the third are brand new songs for us!

Wendy has recorded an original song for us! It’s called “Mercy House.” It’s really good! And she does such an excellent job with it! I can’t wait for you all to hear it. Original music! How about that!?!?

Our sermon is entitled, “The Key To Quality Relationships.” It comes from 1 Peter 3 and is the 5th sermon from our Hard Times, Holy Living sermon series. I’m just going to give away the key right now. It’s a word we don’t like to use much in the modern age. The key is submission. The key to a quality relationship - any relationship - is submission one to another.

I hope you all really tune in tomorrow morning because I think this talk could be most helpful. Submitting to one another is not being a doormat, just letting someone else run over you. But it clearly is not being selfish either. We are going to talk a lot about this biblical idea of submission. I define it as having the courage to give up my rights (we all like our rights, don’t we?) so that I might meet another person’s needs. 1 Peter 3 gives us both the WHY we do it as well as the HOW we do it! Here’s hoping you tune in Sunday morning!

Before we leave for the day, we’ll all sing “Unstoppable God” by Elevation Worship. This is such a great song for us! Do you realize that next month it will be an entire year since we had to do most of our worshiping together online? If you had told me a year ago that we would go an entire year when most of us could not gather together, I would have told you that our church could not survive. (Oh me of little faith!)

Yet God is unstoppable! Our church is stronger than ever and we are reaching more people than we ever did before. It’s just like God to take a negative situation and turn it into something so good!

So whether you show up in person, and more and more of you are starting to come back, or whether you watch online... I hope to “see” most of you tomorrow morning. Remember you can now watch BOTH on Facebook as well as on YouTube. In fact, many of you are reporting back to us that you like the YouTube feed even better. So check it out if you haven’t already.

Love you much! Pastor Mark

New Streaming Camera Debuts Sunday

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Could a little camera, smaller than my hand, make that much of a difference in how you will worship? YES! In fact, for our purposes at Church Requel - I would describe this as our new worship camera! This little piece of tech gear will be just as important as the musical instruments, microphones and computers that bring our worship stream to your mobile phones, tablets or televisions. 

You'll notice a big improvement in the clarity of the picture Sunday morning. Not only will we enjoy a higher resolution, but we will have the ability to zoom and pan to get some of those closer up shots that will really help to bring your right into worship event as you are watching!

(Should I have written this? Brandi and I will be investing our morning today getting the camera set up. I know what I am hoping to accomplish. I guess you'll have to tune in Sunday morning to see if we will be successful in setting up this new camera!)

The other BIG benefit is the camera's small size. So for those who physically come and worship in person - the little camera won't be too much in the way or too big a distraction. The camera is really small and that's a BIG deal!

Our Worship Plans For Sunday Morning at 11am EST. Beyond the new camera gear, what are we planning for this coming Sunday?

Our worship songs will include "Man of Sorrows" by Hillsong, "Control" by Tenth Avenue North, "The Whole Earth" by Gateway Worship, "Yes I Will" by Vertical Worship, and "You Are Good" by Israel Houghton.

Cheryl will read our Scripture - 1 Peter 2:13-25. Jack will sing a special song, "Who Am I." Pastor Mark will bring the sermon entitled, "How To Live With Integrity." Our worship will also include communion and prayer.

You can join in to our online worship experience by using this YouTube link OR by going to our Church Requel Facebook Page. While we are talking about these links, why not share them with some of your other family and friends? They will appreciate you thinking of them and including them.

Lent 2021 - A Spiritual Growth Opportunity. This past Wednesday afternoon, Brandi and I hosted an online conversation about the next 40 days leading up to Easter. Rather than have the attitude that we are "giving up" something for Lent, we consider the possibility of gaining a closer relationship with Christ. It is a good discussion and worth watching. You can watch it here on YouTube.

Ok - that will wrap up today's newsletter to you all. Like I wrote before, I have to meet Brandi down at the church and get things set up for Sunday morning. I love you all! I sure hope you will join us Sunday morning. - Pastor Mark

How Do You See YOU?

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Join us for our worship, Sunday morning February 14th at 11am EST. We will be singing some great praise and worship songs including "Your Love Never Fails" by Jesus Culture, "How He Loves" by David Crowder, "Good Good Father" by Chris Tomlin, "King Of Love" by Jesus Culture, "Cornerstone" by Hillsong," and "God So Loved" by We The Kingdom. We will pray together for our congregation needs and we will share communion together. Our Bible study will be from 1 Peter 2:4-10.

Our sermon is titled, "Who Am I In Christ?" This is no small question. Allow me to re-state it. How do you see yourself? Or here is another one: What difference does my Christianity make? Peter is writing to Christians who are discouraged and struggling. In this Covid-filled world, these ideas of how we rise above our struggles, because we are Christ-followers, are so timely!

Last Sunday everything on the stream went swimmingly well... right up until the last 15 minutes. Suddenly everything went dark. If you were watching, you may be wondering what happened. Our Spectrum Internet went out right about noon. I don't know if you have seen their commercials, but Spectrum advertises 99.9% reliability. Apparently we discovered the 00.1% (sigh).

We have made adjustments as a result. We will keep one of our cameras (my iPhone) always connected through Verizon rather than through Spectrum. So in the future, if we lose our Spectrum connection, we can always remain connected with Verizon. If that ever should happen again, give us a moment to change over the camera and the mic. It's never happened before and I'm hoping it doesn't happen again... but now we are prepared if it does.

On the positive note, we were THRILLED to have Leanna Perdue managing our stream and your comments from her remote location. How wonderful to have another Church Requel team member! If you wonder how your comments are showing up in the lower third of your screen, it's because Leanna is making it happen! Yay!

Another positive is that the worship stream is now available on YouTube as well as the normal Facebook feed. Quite a few of you have been watching on YouTube. There are several advantages to YouTube. First, you can watch it on your larger TV screen rather than just on your mobile device - so it is more shareable with the family. Second, it also more shareable with your friends. You can use THIS LINK to connect directly to the video AND to share it with your family and friends so they can watch too.

I also want to thank you all for your continued financial support of our church. In this weird time when most of us are not comfortable gathering together, it has been so wonderful to watch you continue to give to Church Requel. To make a one-time contribution, just go to give.ChurchRequel.org. Again - thank you!

Hope to "see" most of you Sunday morning at 11am EST. Love you much! Pastor Mark

Worship Online With Enthusiasm & Encouragement!

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

I don’t know what you’re facing this morning, but here in Mansfield I’m facing another dump of snow overnight. For the 4th time in 6 days, I’ll be shoveling our way out of our driveway. Fun! Yes, I jest. Frigid Arctic temperatures for us here this weekend too.

However I’m well aware that not all of US are from Mansfield any more. As I write to you all this morning I am thinking about England, Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Alabama. Here’s hoping the weather in your neck of the woods is more accommodating.

Regardless of where you are located, the vast majority of us worship together via the online stream on Facebook or YouTube. Last week was our first Sunday to broadcast on YouTube. Those of you who watched that way have let me know how much you liked it. Many of you have YouTube available on your larger TV screen and so you can share the worship experience easier with your entire family.

This past weekend was the first time we could share the comments directly to the worship stream. This is a great way to increase the feeling of belonging and participation. When you comment - regardless of whether you are on Facebook or YouTube - we can include the comment in the lower third of the screen. With this improvement comes a couple of opportunities.

First - DO SHARE YOUR COMMENT! Consider that if you were physically in our worship service, you would probably raise your hands or say an “Amen” or just nod your head and smile. When you engage in worship like this, you are more tuned in to the Spirit’s leading and provide encouragement to others to worship more freely. How do we do this when we are separated physically? By sharing our encouragements via comments. By hitting that “like” or “heart” button. I loved it that some of you even commented as a reply to others that you were praying for them. 

Second - CONSIDER HELPING US MODERATE! Brandi and I have figured out how to share these comments in real time onto the screen. But we cannot do this at the same time that we are up front leading the worship. We need help from those of you who are watching the stream.

GOOD NEWS HERE! Our first volunteers have stepped up. Mike and Leanna (aka the Dry Campers) told me this week that they would be willing to moderate our comments when they are located with stable internet. They travel each week to a different place to install solar and lithium systems on RVs and often travel on Sundays. So they can’t do it every week. If we had a couple more online participants be willing to help out, that would be great. It’s not a difficult thing to do. Let me know if you would be willing to help us out with this too. (And thanks Mike and Leanna!)

Speaking of the online stream, I continue to work to improve it. Assuming I can dig out today and get down to the church this morning, I plan to hard wire our streaming computer directly to our Internet provider. When I reviewed last Sunday’s stream, I noticed some pixelation and an occasional drop-out of the sound. I think this is a function of our WiFi connection. If this is the case, connecting a cable from our computer directly to our router could help improve that connection for us. So I’m going to try to be a computer tech guy today. Wish me luck. Just another thing they don’t teach at seminary!

Here is what we have planned for this Sunday. We are looking forward to our worship experience with you. We'll sing praise songs including "Sing Wherever I Go" by We The Kingdom, "Great Are You Lord" by All Sons & Daughters, "See A Victory" by Elevation Worship, "Grateful" by Elevation Worship, and "My Feet Are On The Rock" by I Am They. Mike and Leanna will read our Scripture, 1 Peter 1:13-22. Our sermon is titled, "Deliciously Different." We'll also pray for our congregation's needs and share communion together. So whether in person or online, plan to join us 11am EST Sunday morning, February 7th!

I hope you are all doing well. I pray for you often. Please do the same for me! Love you all much! Pastor Mark