Sunday Social Covered Dish April 7
Come and join fellow Grace friends by sharing a covered dish, following the late service on April 7. Bring a dish that will put a spring in your step! There will be a sign-up sheet for options of covered dishes, found in the narthex.
Holy Week at a Glance
Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday April 14(April 13)
Sat. at 6 p.m. in the Chapel / (April 14) Sun. at 7:45 & 10:30 a.m. in the Nave
Maundy Thursday April 18
12 noon in the St. Peter Chapel – Holy Communion, foot washing and the solemn stripping of the Altar 6:00 p.m. Seder Meal in Fellowship Hall
Good Friday April 19
7 a.m. Stations of the Cross & Breakfast – meet in St. Peter Chapel
7:00 p.m. Service of Good Friday in the Nave
Easter Vigil April 20
6 p.m. Begins in the church-yard; continues in the Nave
Easter Sunday April 21
7:45 & 10:30 a.m. Holy Communion Services in the Nave
Easter Flower Orders Due Friday, April 12
Order forms are available in the Narthex and outside of St. Peter Chapel. The cost is $10.00 per plant. Plants may be picked up following the Easter Sunday (10:30 a.m.) service. Plants that are not picked up will be taken to our homebound members.
Annual Spring Clean Up Saturday April 13
Your help is needed! Please come for all or part of the day. Lots of jobs to do!Fun for the entire family! Inside, outside, all around the church! This is a wonderful opportunity for a family service project! Jobs for every age and ability! Join our property team for a day of service. Many hands make quick work! We hope to see you there!
Summer Garden Planning
Spring began Wednesday, March 20th! It’s time to think about our church flower beds. If you are interested in helping with weeding and or watering the flower beds, please contact the church office at 397-2748. We welcome any amount of time you are able to offer.
Stewardship Snippets
March 31, 2019 (3rd Sunday in Lent, Year C)
2 Corinthians 5:17 – So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. The way a bubbling spring renews and refreshes a stream bed, so the Holy Spirit continually renews our souls. Relax and be continually renewed in Christ.
Our Grace Family
I want thank the Chancel of Grace Church for the flowers I received. They were a surprise for my birthday. Thanks again.Love, Harriet Good
Return to the Lord Your God
By Angela N. Smith, MDiv, MA
I grew up in a family of story tellers. Most Saturdays our extended family would gather at my great aunt and uncle’s house for breakfast, which if you stayed long enough turned into brunch, and if you stayed even longer turned into dinner. One of the great things about these gatherings was that you never knew who was going to show up.
Throughout the course of these extended meals everyone would tell stories. One of my favorite stories was from when my Great Uncle Lou was in seminary. Each week the students would take turns cooking in the refectory. One week, when my Uncle Lou was on the schedule, someone had donated a large amount of rice to the school. One of his fellow students told him the rice to water ratio and he went to work from there.
It turns out that you don’t need to make a pound of dry rice per person. And, yes, I really do mean a pound. Every time I make rice I think about that story and smile. It’s a reminder of where my family came from and that the inability to make a reasonable amount of rice is genetic, although it seems to have skipped a generation.
What about the stories we tell in church? We tell beloved Bible stories to our youngest family members. We read the same beloved stories as adults and try to make sense of them. As we’ve been raising funds for our current capital campaign, I’ve heard many stories about the history of Grace. As an historian I’ve loved hearing them. Stories remind us of where we have come from; there is power in them.
Every week we tell the story of where we come from and why we are here. The liturgy is the story of where we, the church, have come from and to whom we belong. Believe it or not there is a reason for what we do doing worship. The liturgy calls us to remember and invites us to live into God’s saving work for all of creation. Each week we gather as a family to tell stories and share a meal.
If you have forgotten where you have come from, your story, return home to the LORD your God and be reminded. If you love hearing the story of where you have come from, return home to the LORD your God and hear it again. This is our story, the story of the church, the Bride of Christ. There is a place for you in our story and at our table
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