Hello there,
First off, parents of kids, ages 4 to 11, why not take a break on Saturday? FPC teens are having a “Parents’ Night Out” event at the church from 3—8:00 p.m. So drop off the kids, and go see a movie, or go out to dinner, or just have an uninterrupted grown-up conversation for a while. We are asking you to pack a “sack lunch” supper for your child and make a donation to our high school summer mission trip. Please RSVP to either Abbie Parker [email protected] or Pastor Beth [email protected].
This week will be the first Sunday in Lent. One of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, says that you might think of Lent as a tithe of your time. After all, forty days is approximately a tenth of the days in a year. But he goes on to say that during Lent, Christians should ask, one way or another, what does it mean for you to be you? Some of the questions we should be asking might be: When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you see in it that you most deplore? Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember? Is there any person in the world or any cause that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for? If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it? Buechner goes on to say that if we start asking ourselves these kind of questions, it might be a bit overwhelming, even depressing. But if we stick with it and follow where such questions lead, we sometimes find ourselves shifting from the sackcloth and ashes of Ash Wednesday to the joy and light of Easter.
The Chancel Choir is singing at the first service on Sunday. I will be preaching on Genesis 6:5-10, 9:8-17. My sermon title is “What Kind of a God Would Do That?”
Stay in One Peace,
Howard