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!
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!
Change of venue for Peter Yardley-Jones
Join us at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, April 7th at 3:30 p.m.750 Greenfield Rd, Lancaster, PA 17601
PETER YARDLEY-JONES is Director of Music at the Swiss Church in Covent Garden, London, a post he has held since 2011. In 2018 he was also delighted to be appointed Artist in Residence at Market Square Presbyterian Church, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A first-class honours degree graduate in music from the University of Glasgow, between 2006–2008 he was University Organ Scholar, playing for services in the historic Memorial Chapel before being appointed Assistant Organist at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow in 2010. During his time in Glasgow, Peter studied organ with Kevin Bowyer and renowned Bach scholar, Prof. John Butt OBE.
Dramability Works Show!
Dramability Works, a unique theater and arts experience for adults with cognitive disabilities, will present “The Gong Show” on April 13 at Harvest Presbyterian Church, 517 Beaver Valley Pike. The show features original skits, music, and comedy. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. There will be a silent auction, and the entrance fee to the show is pay-what-you-will. Refreshments will be served following the show.We look forward to seeing you there!
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!
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.
Stewardship Snippets
April 7, 2019 (Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year C) Isaiah43:20
The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people. Throughout the Bible you see that human beings are not the ONLY living things God is concerned about. Every plant, animal and organism contains God’s handiwork, and God’s love and concern extends throughout creation.
Our Grace Family
How can I not get well when everyone is praying for me? I want to thank everyone for those prayers and especially Pastor’s visits. I’m doing well now and expect to stay out of the hospital. In appreciation, Muriel
Return to the Lord Your God
By Angela N. Smith, MDiv, MA
If you Google “songs about home”, you get a long list of results for lists of the top songs about “home.” Why is this? Why are we, as a species, obsessed with the idea of “home?” After looking over the various lists of songs it does not appear that our obsession with “home” is generational. It seems to be evenly spread across generations and genres.
A quick glance at ELW shows that Lutherans are not immune to this obsession with “home.” We list our hymns about home and family in the index under “Human Family,” “Unity,” and “Community in Christ.” The categorization of our hymns illustrates that we as Lutherans are committed to life together and that our life together is held together by Christ.
This might sound like a repeat of an article from a few weeks ago, but I think it’s important that we acknowledge, especially during Lent, that while our life together is held together by Christ, we are prone to harming our life together. It’s one of the many ways in which we fail to love our brothers and sisters as Christ loves us.
I think it’s important to be honest about our failings. We can’t brush our human nature under the carpet or shove it in a closet and pretend that it doesn’t exist just because we have company coming. We can’t vacuum our sins away in order to be a more inviting congregation. However, we can be honest about our failings. We can ask questions about, why we hurt each other and why we try to hide our failings from our church family and our guests. I’m not saying that we spill our guts to every person that we interact with, but I do think that we can let our guard down. We can take our communal confession seriously; it’s not a repetition of words on a page, but an acknowledgement that we have intentionally and unintentionally harmed our life together.
God, through Christ, made a commitment to being the glue that holds us together. God knew that we would be messing up life together from the beginning and yet, here we are. Home should be a place where you can be yourself. Home is a place where you can be loved unconditionally. This Lenten season let us return to the LORD our God by renewing our commitment to communal confession and to life together in Christ. We won’t always get it right, but God will always have us and a place for us. Amen.
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