Grace News March 5th, 2019

Many thanks to the children of Grace for sharing the Good News with us on Christmas Eve, they worked very hard to make this year’s play a very special part of our celebration!

Join Our Lenten Discipline
Children and the Bible
Our children will be journeying through the book of Proverbs. The preschoolers will be receiving a copy of the chosen Proverbs and the elementary children will be highlighting as they go in their own bibles.
Congregational Practice
This year as a congregation we will be joining ELCA congregations across the nation in ELCA World Hunger’s 40 Days of Giving. This devotion encourages repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving, and works of love. Envelopes have been placed in the nave and outside the chapel, for you to leave your donation to World Hunger. We are providing jar wrappers so that you can collect your funds at home and bring them in on Easter Sunday. This practice is accompanied by a list of readings. Please see the tables in the narthex and outside of the chapel for devotional materials.
“Oasis” at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd
Join Pastor Verkouw and our friends at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd on Greenfield Road. “Oasis” is a very simple service of Holy Communion, with readings and reflection from Jesus’ teachings in Luke 6 – “The Sermon on the Plain.” Meet there, or, if you would like to ride over with Pastor V, come to the Grace Parking lot by 11:50 a.m. each Wednesday in Lent. The service begins at 12:15 and lasts 1/2 hour.

Lenten Meditation at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church
Grace former organists Murray Foreman and Dr. Karl Moyer will be two of the organists providing quiet organ music as part of the weekly Friday 1:00 – 1:30 period of Lenten meditation at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, East Orange and Anne Streets, Lancaster. There will be no printed program, offering, and no narrative; simply the meditative music. Dr. Moyer opens the series on March 8th, and Murray Foreman plays on April 12th.

Music at Grace Concert – March 24
Sunday March 24, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.
The Lancaster Chamber Singers
The Lancaster Chamber Singers, conducted by Jay W. Risser, has played a major role in quality performances of choral masterpieces in central Pennsylvania and beyond since the group’s founding in 1978. The select group consists of 35 to 40 auditioned vocalists from varied walks of life. In addition to performing a capella, the group performs with Lancaster area instrumentalists and chamber ensembles.

March 10, 2019 (1^st Sunday in Lent, Year C)
Stewardship Snippets
Luke 4:3 – The devil said to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Our consumer culture tells us again and again that our happiness is measured in how many of our wants we can fulfill. Jesus resists temptation by remembering that we live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4b).

Youth Group—Escape Room Event
YOUTH GROUP REMINDER
Sunday April 14th, 2019
Meet in the Stafford Room following the 10:30 service. We will have lunch and then walk to the Escape Room. Cost $12 per participant. Please RSVP to Angie by March 24th, 2019.

Bell Tower Chimers Needed
We need bell tower chimers – especially for Sundays at 6pm. Anyone interested can call Jenny Fritsch (717-872-8979) or Donna Linton (717-575-9388).

A Note From Our Assistant Program Director

Return to the Lord Your God
By Angela N. Smith, MDiv, MA
“When life hands you lemons make lemonade,” we’ve all heard the saying. I personally prefer the Phil Dunphy (Modern Family) version of that proverb, “When life you gives you lemonades, make lemons. Life will be all like, ‘what?!’” But what about the Biblical version of this proverb? When life hands you lemons (or lemonade), scripture encourages us return home and “Life will be all like, ‘what?!’”
The prophet Joel counsels us to “Return to the LORD, your God.” The prophet calls us away from desperate wandering in the desert and calls us home. Home to the LORD our God. Home to the God who made us, in whose cross we have been sealed, whose body and blood were given for us, and whose cross we can see on our foreheads as we begin each Lenten season. Joel reassures us that it is safe for us to return home because the LORD, our God “is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” No matter how far away we wander from home, the table will always be set for us. The ashen crosses that mark our foreheads this season are not there to make us feel like we are unworthy of coming home, rather they remind us that the one who created us has never and will never leave us, no matter how far we wander. Our ashen crosses remind us that when life hands us lemons (or lemonade), we are stuck with God into the ages of ages. There is nothing that we can do that will erase God’s claim on us. This is our home. There is a place for each and everyone of us at the table, now and in the life in the world to come.
One way that you can “return to the LORD, your God,” this Lenten season is by attending one of our worship services. Return home to your family, to the table that will always be set for you. Return home to the arms of the one that loves you to the grave and beyond. “Return to the LORD, your God” for you are dust and to dust you shall return.