Weekly Announcements

The Week of May 4th at a Glance

Mon. May 5 – Trustees, 6:00 (7)

Tues. May 6 – Food Pantry open, 10:30-2:00 (FLC)

Wed. May 7 – Prayer, 6:00 a.m. (sanctuary)
Praise Band, 6:00 (FLC)

Thu. May 8 – Chancel Choir, 6:30 (6/7)
Compassionate Friends, 7-9:00 (5)

Fri. May 9 – June newsletter deadline

Sat. May 10 – Dress A Girl, 9-1:00 (7)
Women’s Ministry Event, 11-1:00 (FLC)

Pastor’s Corner

I want to thank all the folks who made Lent and Holy Week come together. It has been a blessed and eventful six weeks!
I thought we had good participation in the Lenten Study on Sunday mornings. Most of the comments I received were about the joy of getting to know new people with the opportunity to talk and listen to one another.
The new Church sign went in right before Palm Sunday. I have had fun working with the colors and trying to keep the messages simple and easy to read. The dedication will come when they add the brick base.
This was the first year I got to come to the whole Easter Egg Hunt. We were worried about the weather but it was dry enough to have the egg hunt outside. We are blessed with an extraordinary children’s ministry here year-round.
For Holy Week, we had two special services. We have experimented with “moving” services that follow Jesus through the evenings of Holy Thursday ad Good Friday. We were blessed with exceptional weather so there were outside portions on each evening.
On Thursday, hospitality put on a fine, simple meal of homemade soup, rolls, and cookies. Music was let by our Praise Band, the Chancel Choir, and Ensemble. Our Holy Communion prayer was written by our own Mary Johnson.
Friday’s service took us from Jesus’ trails before Pilate, Herod, Pilate again, and then to the Cross outside. Then the service shifted and ended at the tomb. And what a Tomb we have this year. Last year’s tomb had too much damage from the wind, so a plea went out for someone to volunteer to lead bilding a new one. Brian Martin had a wood shop in his garage and extra building supplies and a wonderful sense of creativity. He was assisted by Art Latimer. At just the right time, the hand of God added Ryan Avril to the mix. The New Tomb was birthed. It was also designed to take apart and store. It is a masterpiece, and I am confident it will get even better and better each year.
I am thankful for our special monologue readers. This year’s monologues were based on the Gospel of Luke. On Holy Thursday we had Simon Thompson and Connor Smith with multiple readings as Apostles Peter and John unpacked the story of that evening. I was thankful to be able to read Jesus’ part; and I am also thankful for the courage of Rev. Lynne Hundley to read Judas’ part. On Good Friday we had Ralph Scichilone as the High Priest, Jeff Ward as Pontious Pilate, Art Latimer as Herod, and Gerald McCarty as the Centurion. The story of three witnesses at the death and burial were read by Karen Jennette, Belene Jalbert and Sheila Smith. All these folks did a fine job of stepping up to make the story more meaningful.
On Easter morning we had 33 folks come to the Service of the Empty Tomb where we heard about dealing with skepticism and the story of Edith Burns, “Do you believe in Easter?”. At our 9 am contemporary service, as always, our Praise Band brought good spiritual food to the table as we talked about how we know resurrection is real.
At the traditional service at 11:15, we started with a combined organ and piano prelude by Lillian Taylor and Linda Boles that took my breath away. And as always, the ensemble and choir continued to feed us with good spiritual food. As is our custom, we lifted high the cross full of flowers and greenery that the people had contributed to represent the Living Christ.
I am sure I have left some of the other supporting folks out of my report, but what I am sure of, is that God is working through each person in our church. I am confident that those who walked with us through this season of Lent were drawn closer to God as we drew closer to one another. God is alive and working at Ebenezer UMC.
What a joy it was to see our services full of faces both new to us as well as old familiar faces as we all gathered for one reason...to celebrate a Risen Lord! Hallelujah!

Blessings in Christ, Pastor Tom

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