Dear Trinity,
As we approach Holy Week, please read below for details on each service.
PALM SUNDAY // 9 & 10:30am
GOOD FRIDAY // 7pm
Stations of the Cross (Guided Art Walk) opens at 6pm
You are invited to prepare your hearts for the Good Friday service by coming a little early and walking the stations of the cross outside the church. We wanted to provide a meditative space for you to enter into Jesus' passion (passion means suffering in Latin). Pastor Matt will greet you and help guide your meditative walk with a few questions to consider. About Our Good Friday Service This year on Good Friday, we will continue our traditional service of the stripping of the Christmas Tree, and turning it into a barren cross. During our service, you'll get the opportunity to cut off a branch of the Christmas Tree as you "cut off" something in your life that is hindering you from connection with the Lord.
We started this service in Scotland in an attempt to keep Christmas and Easter - incarnation and redemption - always tightly bound in our hearts and minds. We know from Matt's Backyard Pilgrim book that the incarnation was not just the first domino to fall in a series of events leading to the crucifixion. Rather, it is the continuation of a love story. We are not just a problem to be fixed by Good Friday. God created the cosmos to love us and to eventually be with us. Keeping creation - incarnation - and redemption tightly bound together (as symbolized in the Christmas Tree turned barren Crucifix turned bursting with new life) reminds us that God isn't just trying to fix us, but that the story of redemption is part of a bigger revelation of God's eternal heart toward us.
The origins of this service (not the Christmas Tree clipping, but simply gathering together on Good Friday) originated in Jerusalem before the 4th century. With Jesus' divinity finally established in the creeds, people had space to begin exploring his humanity - and they began going in droves to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. What they discovered was an active "church of Jerusalem" spread across the whole city, with its own native traditions - and resident Christians "keeping watch" through the whole city, at different holy sites associated with Jesus, through the three days. The entire church roamed over the whole city, going to site by site, and holding a service at each place in memory of Christ and his love for them. When pilgrims experienced this for themselves, they began to bring this tradition back with them to Europe.
EASTER // 10am - 1:30pm
This day is the high point of the church calendar, the pivot around which the rest of the year turns. This is when we celebrate the mystery of when the new creation begins - in Christ's resurrected body, and now for our bodies.
10:00am - 11:30am // Easter Service
At Wes & Rachel Whitson's property (address in RSVP link)
Outside
Bring a flower for the cross
Bring your own chair/blanket
Masks optional
11:30am - 1:30pm // Easter Feast
At Wes & Rachel Whitson's property (address in RSVP link)
Lunch provided for everyone outside
Bring:
Salad (fruit, garden, or potato) OR
Dessert
Masks required while going through the food line
Easter egg hunt and other special activities!
NEW SERVICE TIMES (Starting April 11th)
The Brethren Baptists will start meeting in the building again this Easter. Since their service is at 11am, our NEW service times will be:
8:00am
9:15am
*News to come about when we're offering Godly Play.
LATER THIS SPRING
Finally, we have been considering a 4-week structure of gathering as a church:
Week 1 - All Church Gathering Outside
Week 2 - Regular Services at WBBC
Week 3 - Regular Services at WBBC
Week 4 - Backyard Church
Please be praying for our team as we walk toward the future together.