Children’s Ministry News
Sunday, March 28 • Children’s Chat
Join Patt and Katie for Children’s Chat this week!
Bible Story: Jesus Enters Jerusalem
Scripture: Matthew 21:1-11
Bible Verse: Do this in remembrance of me. Luke 22:19
In-Person Worship This Sunday!
Sunday, March 21 • In-Person Worship
There are spots available for you to join us for in-person worship on Sunday. Ronette and Joe will be singing in worship. When was the last time you saw live music? We know we can’t wait!
We will continue our sermon series, The Last Week, and enjoy worshipping together.
To sign-up for worship visit the following link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040E45A5A82BA4F49-sunday
For those not comfortable attending church in-person, we will continue to stream services online each Sunday.
Holy Week Worship
Holy Week Worship
Maundy Thursday and Good Friday
In lieu of traditional worship services on these two holy days, the church will be open for members and friends of Shawnee Community Christian Church to come to the church for a prayer and reflection.
There will be nine interactive prayer stations to guide your reflection. Each prayer station will include a scripture, an activity, and a reflection that will encourage you to grow in your faith.
Thursday, April 1: Maundy Thursday 5:00 t0 8:00 pm
Friday, April 2: Good Friday Noon to 2:00 pm
Limited In-Person Worship on Sunday
On Sunday, March 7, we began in-person worship for a small group of worshippers at 10:00 am. Sandy Allen attended worship and wrote a thank you and testimonial about being able to attend worship after one year of missing in-person worship.
I want to thank everyone at SCCC that made it possible to worship “in person” on Sunday. It was a blessing to be able to sit in worship with some of our SCCC family—I know it was limited to a few. but it was wonderful. I have enjoyed the live streaming but being able to share in the worship experience was exciting.
There was definitely a feeling of love for God and for each other—Ronette’s music; leadership and sermon by Rick and Rene; technology team of Andy, Matt, Bobette, and Ashley—and the willingness of people to come and be in worship for the first time in a year. Being able to take communion with others is a special blessing.
The worship area was prepared so there was plenty of social distancing and every precaution has been taken to keep us safe. I hope that others will take advantage of this opportunity to worship at the church. I look forward to when we can all be together again, but in the meantime, I thank God for the steps that are being taken to allow us to worship with SCCC family in the church building.
Amen and amen!
Sending love and blessings to my SCCC family,
Sandy Allen
There are spots available to sign up for worship this Sunday. To sign-up for worship visit the following link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040E45A5A82BA4F49-sunday
For those not comfortable attending church in-person, we will continue to stream services online each Sunday.
The Last Week Worship Series Continues on Sunday
Sunday, March 14 • 10:00 am In-Person and on Facebook
Our Worship Series The Last Week continues this Sunday. We have been going day by day through the events of the last week of Jesus’ earthly life. This week we will be looking at Wednesday. The scripture is Mark 14:1-11 and is the story of the woman who anoints Jesus.
a little r & r
Mexicans have a saying for this time of year: “Febrero loco, Marzo un poco.” You don’t have to know Spanish to guess what it means: “February is crazy, but March is even crazier.”
Just a momentary thought makes us quickly realize this time of year is loco in nearly every way we can imagine. First, there’s the crazy weather. A mere three weeks ago we were breaking records for the most consecutive days of snowfall; albeit not any single deep snow, but snow, nonetheless. Temperatures and wind chills from a southerly moving polar vortex were plunging well below zero. This week we’re experiencing temperatures more than 80-degrees F. warmer. People are in short sleeves.
If anyone is feeling a bit dizzy, it may not be from post-COVID inoculation but from barometric pressures swinging wildly from one extreme to another! Wind speeds changing all the time make us unsure whether March came in like a lamb or a lion!
Besides which, is March a winter month or a spring month? Normally March 21 is the first day of Spring (Hurray!), but the transition from one season to another can feel like the final stage of childbirth. Winter’s baby has “crowned” but spring hasn’t quite gotten born yet. So, moving from winter to spring can feel very painful.
In a way, this past year has seemed like an endless winter. The onslaught and scary impact of the pandemic began almost exactly a year ago here in the United States. Our patience is wearing thin. Even our questions disclose our impatience. When will everyone get the vaccine? When will things be back to normal? When can we fully meet as a church on Sundays? Questions with no answers just keep coming.
By now, you may have figured out that this is my least favorite time of year, though I love seeing the first tulips, daffodils, forsythia, and buds on trees! Glorious!! And yet, I have come to really dislike the “spring forward” to Daylight Savings Time, which by the way happens this coming Sunday, the 14th. Let’s either do permanent Daylight Savings or keep to Standard time!
Finally, Lent and Easter support our Mexican friends’ sentiment of how crazy February is and even crazier March is! Doing Lent right means doing the hard self-examination required to embrace the joy of Easter. Without Lent’s demand for us to look into our own inner darkness, our celebration of Jesus’ resurrection becomes muted.
And even figuring out when Easter occurs is a kind of calendar calculus. It’s loony too, because Easter’s date each year is set, unlike Christmas, according to the lunar calendar, when the full moon arrives. It’s tied to the Jewish Passover on their 13-month lunar calendar in which every month is 28 days long.
The key to figuring out Easter’s date each year is the word “FIRST.” Easter is the FIRST Sunday after the FIRST full moon after the FIRST day of spring. This year Easter is the first Sunday in April, the 4th. But Easter can fall anywhere between March 22 and April 21. The date of the crazy full moon is one of the three keystones for figuring out when Easter arrives.
I think we owe Mexicans a word of gracias for giving us such a colorful and accurate way of describing this time of year with all the insanity that marks winter becoming spring. Because, really, who can easily, logically, rationally, and accurately describe the miracles of cocoons becoming butterflies, of bare branches budding and blooming, of the cross and death as not the end but the beginning of new life and resurrection?
John’s Jesus captures this craziness beautifully when he says, in Chapter 16 in the Farewell section of John’s gospel:
When a woman gives birth, she has pain because her time has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers her distress because of her joy that a child has been born into the world. In the same way, you have sorrow now; but I will see you again, and you will be overjoyed. No one takes away your joy. Up to now, you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive so that your joy will be complete.
Friends, winter is ending. Spring is coming. Hope is about to be fulfilled. For, as Psalm 30 sings, “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”
Let’s March On as morning dawns!
Rick
Holy Week Worship
Holy Week Worship
Maundy Thursday and Good Friday
In lieu of traditional worship services on these two holy days, the church will be open for members and friends of Shawnee Community Christian Church to come to the church for a prayer and reflection.
There will be nine interactive prayer stations to guide your reflection. Each prayer station will include a scripture, an activity, and a reflection that will encourage you to grow in your faith.
Maundy Thursday Hours: 5:00 t0 8:00 pm
Good Friday Hours Noon to 2:00 pm
Easter Sunday Worship Schedule
Parking Lot Worship at 8:30 am
Bring a lawn chair and gather in the parking lot of Shawnee Community for a joyful celebration of Christ’s resurrection.
Sanctuary Worship at 10:00 am
There will be limited in-person worship in the Sanctuary as we rejoice in the good news that Christ is risen. This service will be live streamed.
Children’s Ministry News
Sunday, March 14 • Children’s Chat
Join Patt and Katie for Children’s Chat this week!
Bible Story: The Last Supper
Scripture: Luke 22:14-29
Bible Verse: Do this in remembrance of me. Luke 22:19
a little r & r
So, here we are, well into the Season of Lent, having worshiped on Ash Wednesday and the first two Sundays of Lent! Lent is precisely 40 days (not counting Sundays as feast days) and began on Ash Wednesday (this year on February 17) and concludes the night before Easter.
While Lent is familiar to many people, there are nuances to the season easily missed. Why, for example, does Lent last 40 days, not including Sundays? The reason: They represent the 40 days of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. His 40 days allude to Moses and Elijah fasting for 40 days and to the 40 days and 40 nights Noah and his family and the animals spent on the ark during the Flood. Finally, the number 40 is significant for the 40 years Moses and Israel spent in the wilderness following their escape from Egypt and worship of the golden calf.
Why has Lent traditionally included fasting or some kind of sacrifice? Many people will give up some favorite food, hobby, or practice to observe the Lenten season and to honor Jesus’ loving sacrifice on the cross. After all, it begins with Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance for sins and acknowledgement of our finitude: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Fasting and personal sacrifice underscore the penitent theme of the Lenten season.
Lent invites us to face fearlessly the darkness, within us personally and with us corporately, like the crowd that shouted, “Crucify him!” and collaborated with the political and religious authorities in condemning Jesus to death on Good Friday. Without regular Lenten confession, it is easy for Christians to fall prey to the cardinal sin of pride. It was this very sin Jesus averted when he refused the devil’s invitation to make all the nations bow to him. Jesus’ humility in avoiding temptation stands in diametrical opposition to tyrants who seek to make people bow to them. Without imitating Jesus’ humility through acknowledging our own shortcomings it’s easy to delude ourselves into self-righteous thinking and behavior.
Is Lent new or has it been around a long time? It has been around a very long-time though many evangelical & Pentecostal churches never have observed Lent. Lenten discipline remains a fairly new practice for many mainstream denominations like ours, who only began to observe all the seasons of the church year after Vatican II in the 1960’s. But Lent has been around at least since the 4th century C.E. with the Council of Nicea in the year 325.
Is our observance of Lent really necessary? It depends on how we define “necessary.” But the temptation is to omit observing Lent and its many spiritual implications for our relationships to God and to others. To this day, many Christians ignore Lend and forget about Good Friday, the climax of the Lenten season, altogether. Some churches in their desire to attract new people have even done away with the cross in their sanctuary for fear new people will be offended by it. Thankfully this isn’t true at Shawnee Community.
Of course, nearly everyone in Christianity likes celebrating Christmas and Easter! What’s not to like in celebrating the birth of a baby (though many Churches of Christ—not to be confused with United Church of Christ churches—don’t) and celebrating resurrection? But Good Friday and its inference of all humanity’s complicity in Jesus’ death is another story. In a death-denying society like ours, many people are afraid that even talking about death is tempting fate. But orthodox, traditional Christianity of which we are descendants is much bolder in its willingness to face the darkness of life rather than deny it or run away from this darkness we all know exists in us and in our world.
And this willingness to face our own inner darkness and the world’s darkness does not prevent Lent from including Sundays as feast days, when the little sacrifices we make through Lent can be suspended briefly. Sundays, even in Lent, are called “feast days” as a way of affirming the power Easter has for us no matter the time of year. Sundays always stand as reminders that God’s love and life are more powerful than death and darkness; hence Sunday’s feast over Lent’s fasts.
Does Jesus’ victory over temptation have positive implications for us? The devil set before Jesus some of the great temptations, often referred to as the 7 deadly sins, the church has identified over the centuries: Egotism or pride “If you are the Son of God, then…”; Gluttony and Materialism: Bread to overcome Jesus’ hunger” and so on.
That Jesus called upon God’s help to overcome these temptations provides us with the hope that by calling upon God’s help, we are empowered to begin overcoming the various temptations that afflict our lives.
At the same time, as Lent leads to the victory of Easter, so Lent can make each day a kind of Easter, whenever we achieve a special goal or overcome some temptation in our life. Many people have found their observance of this season of penitence more helpful and positive by starting a spiritual discipline: daily meditation, regular every Sunday worship, an exercise routine…the possibilities are endless so long as we identify their spiritual intent.
But just as Lent would become meaningless without Easter at Lent’s conclusion, so Easter can feel empty if Lent is not observed. In the latter case, Easter can become like a special vacation at Disney World, fun and glorious, but emotionally and spiritually superficial. Lent, which also quite literally separates the Lengthening of days with the coming of Springtime has a way of deepening our faith and our commitment to loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
It’s why we started this season in worship on Sunday, February 21st, with the words, “Have a Meaningful Lent” because Lent is that season in the Christian year when we are most apt to ask, “What does it all mean?”
A continued meaningful Lent to you and yours!
Rick
Limited In-Person Worship Begins Sunday, March 7th
On Sunday, March 7, we will begin in-person worship for a small group of worshippers each Sunday at 10:00 am.
Worshippers will sign-up to attend the Sunday service by Friday night. We ask that you please do not sign-up every week to allow others to participate. When you sign-up, please include the total number who will be attending. For example, if you are signing up and you have two children who will also be in attendance, please sign-up for three spots. At this time, there will be no nursery or children’s programming available. We will have children’s activity packets available.
Worshippers will need to arrive by 9:45 am so everyone will be settled and ready when the live streaming begins at 10:00 am. Strict social distancing and mask requirements will be followed.
For those not comfortable attending church in-person, we will continue to stream services online each Sunday.
Sign-Up for Worship: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/9040E45A5A82BA4F49-sunday
