April 15 Thought for Reflection
Friends in Holy Covenant,
Happy Easter to you! Christ is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!
What an amazing Holy Week! From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, our sanctuary swelled with nearly 700 folks gathering to worship God. What a joy it was to share in those gatherings with you. My thanks to all who helped prepare-lay and staff leaders and preachers, Scripture readers and greeters, musicians and cooks, communion servers and chair setter-uppers and sanctuary decorators, flower arrangers and baptismal water flingers, children’s leaders and artists of all kinds. It was just awesome. Thanks be to you, and thanks be to God.
As we move into the Easter season (it’s not only a day but seven weeks of celebrating the Resurrection), you’re invited to go deeper into community here. We have a new sermon/worship series starting this coming Sunday (with Anne Williamson and Rebecca Anderson, two of our fabulous interns, preaching for the last time on a Sunday morning); a round of diverse small groups beginning in a few weeks; an all-congregation summit on our ongoing ministry; a Gospel music service and an old-school hymn sing coming up; a Memorial weekend mission trip to help repair flood damage in Iowa; and tons more. Read more below.
One more thing: the last verse of the closing hymn from our Easter morning services…it’s stuck with me and wanted to share it again with you, from the text “Christ is Risen” by John Bell and Graham Maule.
Christ has risen, and forever
lives to challenge and to change
all whose lives are messed or mangled,
all who find religion strange.
Christ is risen, Christ is present,
making us what he has been-
evidence of transformation
in which God is known and seen.
Happy Easter everyone,
Pastor Trey Hall
