Good Friday morning Church Requel!
As I write you this letter I'm looking out my dining room window and see nothing but clear skies. Wow! So blue! So bright! It's going to be a great day! How are you going to celebrate it?
So what's with the title to today's letter? You may be wondering about my adoption. Maybe you're wondering about your own. Well... I have the adoption papers right here:
"In love [God] predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will." Ephesians 1:5
This will be the topic of our conversation Sunday morning, and I must tell you that I cannot wait! This is such life-changing good news! Most of the time we just don't think about what all this means. I aim to change that Sunday morning. If you're at all like me, you just won't be able to stop thinking about it after our Sunday chat! Actually, we won't even be able to get it all in on one day... we'll be talking about the implications of this for the next three Sunday mornings!
Here are my sermon notes in the Bible app for this Sunday - http://bible.com/events/48773343
You might have noticed that Mary Kay and I were not physically with you in Mansfield last Sunday. We attended our niece Christy Anne's wedding in Southern Ohio Saturday evening. We so enjoyed our family and the wedding festivities.
Those of you who have been with Church Requel from the beginning will remember Christy came up many weekends to help us lead worship in those early years.
While we weren't with you physically in Mansfield, we most definitely worshiped with you online. It's really good for me to be on the other side of the camera every now and again to be able to see what it's like to watch online live Sunday mornings.
Maybe some of you online parishioners are already doing this, but if you're not - let me tell you about my online experience. I had my iPad propped up watching the worship service on YouTube while I had my phone occasionally texting Leanna. It really felt like we were worshiping together even though we were thousands of miles apart. Maybe some of you who worship online each week might get the contact information from those who are also online with you so you can develop your friendships a little more. Just an idea. Later that day I texted Leanna one last time and told her it felt like we went to church together that morning. She agreed!
Here is the link to the YouTube live worship video scheduled for Sunday at 11am EDT. https://youtu.be/5tWcoc9wfdI
These are the songs we'll be singing this Sunday: "Mercy House" by Wendy Kriegel (this is a Church Requel original written by one of our online parishioners!); "Waymaker" by Leeland; "Unstoppable God" by Elevation Worship; "Believe For It" by CeCe Winans; "Adoption" by Ghost Ship; and "More To Come" by Passion. Looks like it will be a super worship time. Thank you so much Brandi for arranging these for us!
One last note to you... I love how the Sequels, our new student ministry, blasted off in its first month with Eddie Walker piloting. Wow!
If you know of a family with students who are not already attending church somewhere, invite them to come to Church Requel! They will thank you... and so will I! I love this photo of Eddie praying over our students. Don't you?
At the top of today's newsletter I talked about the blue skies and clear weather today. I believe this is true for Church Requel's opportunities right now as well. As a most famous man once quipped, the harvest is plentiful! So true!
Love you all much, Pastor Mark
