I hope I called this column correctly in the title. It is a bit of a hodge podge this week, but there are a lot of loose ends dangling. So, here goes.
Saturday the 11th. We will begin a hospitality/welcome study and team on this Saturday at 10:00. We are going to do the hard work of examining our congregational life to see where we need to change our focus from in house to the community. It will necessitate a change in some of the ways we do things. Please pray for the ministry. Please be aware whether God is calling you to be part of it. Even if you aren’t sure, come Saturday to get a sense of what’s going on.
Sunday our text will be Psalm 119:1-8. It is my custom to plan preaching a Psalm quarterly simply for the discipline of working a different genre in Scripture. This is always a challenge to me that the Psalms are like works of art. You get them, or you don’t. You’ll want to be here to see if I get it.
Ash Wednesday, February 22 at 6:00 p.m. Please join us on Ash Wednesday as we observe the beginning of Lent, the 40 day period of self-examination and self-denial that precedes Easter Sunday. In addition to an invitation to observe Lent, we will impose ashes on participants as a reminder of our own mortality.
Our Lenten Study will begin Sunday, Feb. 26. Our resource will be Amy-Jill Levine, Witness at the Cross. It is available from Amazon either in print or as an eBook. If you prefer, call the church office and Michel can get a copy coming for you. It’s about $13.
April 30 will be our second annual Blessing of the Bikes following service. This is a great opportunity for us to welcome the community into our space.
We have been invited to participate in a Fireworks tent with St. Marks UMC as a fundraiser. The tent generates pretty good money for those who work it, based upon the number of hours each congregation puts in. There is a clip board circulating around the sanctuary asking people to indicate roughly how many hours they might be willing to work at the tent. We are not asking for a binding commitment, but are trying to gauged whether enough interest exists that we should participate in this fund raiser.
So, maybe it was more bits than pieces. Either way, you are caught up on the doin’s around NBUMC.
In the meantime, see you Sunday.
Paul