Good Friday morning dear Church Requel!
Before we talk about our plans for this weekend, I want to urge you to lift up two important prayer requests this morning - both involving families of our online church community.
First, please pray for Leanna's mom, who was taken via EMS to the hospital early this morning. Both Leanna and her mom have been fighting COVID 19 like symptoms all week, but seemed to be on the mend yesterday. For unknown reasons, Leanna's mom took a turn for the worst this morning - vomiting to the point of dry heaving. She's weak and hurting.
Second, let's continue to pray for Jack and Cheryl in Virginia. Their property was ground zero for the winter storm tornado that hit this past Monday. Their power is still out. They lost 4 trees on their property, but miraculously none hit their home. Pray that power will soon be restored and that they will continue to stay warm and fed and healthy in the meantime.
The Gang's All Back For Sunday! The Walkers and the Logans have returned from their vacation, so we will have a full praise team this Sunday morning! Yay! Here are the songs we plan to sing this Sunday morning:
- "By The Spirit" by Pat Barrett
- "Mighty To Save" by Hillsong
- "Break Every Chain" by Jesus Culture
- (NEW) "Hurry" by Jesus Culture
- "O The Blood" by Gateway Worship
- "Unstoppable God" by Elevation Worship
I am looking forward to delivering my first sermon of 2022 by talking about "Resolutions God's Way." The new year always brings us the opportunity to establish resolutions for the new year. By one week in, most of us have already forgotten or failed our resolutions. Most of us didn't even really try. What does God make of our resolutions? How are God resolutions different than the ones we make? We will consider 4 different Old Testament Bible stories to understand how God wants to make resolutions in our lives.
Want to get a head start on this week's sermon? You can find it in your Bible app by searching for Church Requel under "Events". You can also check out this link: http://bible.com/events/48824058.
We know that many are concerned about the recent new surge in Covid cases, so if you wish to worship from home - make sure you plan to join in with us on either Facebook or on YouTube. Let us know you're watching with comments throughout the worship. It really does help encourage us to "see" you out there watching! Here is the YouTube link for this Sunday: https://youtu.be/_r0RaR56ClM.
Recent Tech Changes. At our end-of-year leadership meeting, we make some decisions regarding some of our technology. We will be focusing even more on what is working and dropping some things that aren't working so well.
#1 - We will be changing our main church website over from ChurchRequel.org over to ChurchRequel.com. Frankly very few of our own congregation ever used the .org site and we have not seen very many visitors come from there either. Further, most people just automatically assume that a website is .com anyway. So we will be emphasizing the .com site in the future. We own the rights to the .org registration through most of 2022 so we have plenty of time to make the transition.
#2 - We will be stepping up our use of our Church Requel Facebook Page even more this year. This is the place where most people - including our own congregation - find us. We have developed an entire team of Facebook editors from within our own church, who publish there each week. Brian is so faithful putting up Bible verses and encouraging words for us. Stephenie has become our church photographer and puts up cool pictures for us each week. Cheryl has become the leader prayer warrior. Each week Cheryl puts up our prayer requests on our Church Requel Prayer Chain and also reminds us to pray on our Facebook Page. Don lets us know what's happening with benevolence each week. Brandi and Eddie let us know what's going on with our worship and student ministries. I take the responsibility to write this weekly newsletter and also publish the short videos from the past Sunday's worship service. Thanks so much to this team that keeps us so well informed! Make sure you encourage them with lots of "likes" and positive comments.
#3 - Because of #1 above, we will be changing over our online giving location to Give.ChurchRequel.com. For the next year, both "Give" sites will work. So if you use the .org ending, no worries. The church will still very thankfully receive your contribution. However, it would be a good idea to get in the habit of using the .com extension because eventually the .org will not be available to us. (Also - it's not like you could be sending money to some unknown place. The link will just stop working.)
Thanks so much for your continued support - both financially and even more importantly, with your prayers. Keep Leanna and Cheryl and Jack in your prayers. Hope to "see" most of you Sunday morning! Love you much! Pastor Mark
