Church Requel Blog - Writings of Mark Pierce

Bring In The New Year Right - Worship Sunday at 11am

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

It feels like it has been so long since I have seen you all! That's what happens when we have negative 10 degrees on Christmas Eve!

Good news! That's not the case this week! As is typical for Ohio weather, we will see a swing of 60 degrees F with high temps around 50 degrees all weekend! Woohoo! Break out the Hawaiian shirts! Ha!

Seriously, some have wondered if we are changing anything for this Sunday since it is New Year's Day. The answer is everything will go forward as normal with our worship at 11am EST Sunday morning. We have endeavored to arrange a meaningful worship service for you all - we can't think of a better way to kick off the new year right than with worship.

If you cannot be with us in person Sunday morning, you can watch on our Facebook page and on our YouTube channel. Here is the link for the YouTube video. https://youtu.be/pne3VBh2H_o

Hope to start the New Year 2023 with each of you on Sunday! Love you much! Pastor Mark

Christmas Eve Service Online Only

Merry Christmas Eve my friends,

We have waited as long as we could to make the call for tonight's Christmas Eve service. Sadly - as of 7:30pm EST - we are still at a Level 2 Emergency here in Richland County. The roads are still slick and there is lots of blowing snow. Sooo... we won't have a public Christmas Eve candle lighting service at the church tonight.

HOWEVER!!!! We will still stream a Christmas Eve service at 11pm tonight!!!

One thing we learned extremely well during the 2020 Covid year was how to make adjustments when we couldn't meet publicly. Brandi and I will host tonight's Christmas Eve service online. We will each be broadcasting from our own homes, so don't go to the church building tonight. We won't be there. But we will be on Facebook. And we will be on YouTube!

Here is the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/Wxt8cmhS05I

Plan to tune in and please please please... participate! You can write lots of comments and wish one another Merry Christmas. You can find a candle to light. You can get your communion bread and juice/wine ready. And you can tell everyone you know - friends and family alike - about our Christmas Eve service online. They can watch no matter how far away they live! So tune in to our Facebook page or the above YouTube link at 11pm tonight EST.

Hope to "see" you at 11pm tonight! Love you much! Pastor Mark

Christmas Eve at Church Requel

Good Friday morning Church Requel!

Christmas 2022 is almost here! Despite the cold wintry weather outside, I'm sure excited on my inside about our plans for this Christmas.

Christmas Eve Candlelight Communion will begin at 11pm. We haven't started it this late in the evening before. But we thought it would be a great idea to end our Christmas Eve worship by beginning Christmas morning - 12am - worshiping Jesus together. So we sure do hope you will join us.

The band will be leading us in some great Christmas music. Brandi has arranged some of our Christmas songs and mashed them into some praise songs we often sing. It's pretty special and I can't wait until you hear. We also have several people who have stepped up and volunteered to sing special music.

I have written a new Christmas Eve sermon about the angels singing. Or did they? You'll have to come to find out. Or you can read the sermon in your Bible app or click here: http://bible.com/events/49005267

We also will be sharing a very special communion service together, literally breaking bread together before our final candle lighting. I'm looking forward to celebrating this communion with you all!

Finally - as we do each year - we will end our Christmas Eve service lighting all our candles, and then finally the new communion candles. These candles on the communion tables are replaced each Christmas Eve and always remind us of the Christ candle from which it was lit.

If you cannot be with us in person, you will be able to watch the live stream on Facebook and on YouTube. Here is the YouTube link. https://youtu.be/Wxt8cmhS05I

Lastly, I know the weather outside is frightful right now. As I write I am reminded that we are currently under a Level 2 Snow Emergency. It is my deepest hope that this travel ban will be lifted by tomorrow evening. If we are forced to close tomorrow night, we will post on our website and on our Facebook page. Also this reminder - we will not be having a worship service this Sunday morning.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope to see most of you tomorrow night! Love you much, Pastor Mark